A/N: Thanks for alerts & such. Remember, I'm a review whore. Reviews make me happy. All reviews.
2
Carth popped open the smoking escape hatch to the sun of the Tarisian Upper City.
He'd managed to crash the pod smack in the middle of a crowded walkway, sending citizens running and screaming, and providing a great distraction. He looked down at the woman in his arms, her bleeding exaggerated by the crash. There had to be somewhere they could crash – no pun intended – until she healed up, and there had to be a doctor –
Someone walking by – odd, since everyone else was running – frantically motioned to an open door just to the left of their crashed pod. Carth nodded and sprinted for it, hoping to whatever powers were listening that he wasn't just going to send the Sith after them later.
He found an abandoned apartment just to the left, door half-open with a sparking panel. He ducked through it and set her down gently on one of the beds inside, pulling the panel off to quickly rewire and fix the door. Once it was closed, he turned back to her.
A quick visit to the 'fresher got him a bowl and a single, lost towel, and he promptly began wiping blood away from the wound. It surprised him to see a blood-soaked bandage already covering it.
"What the hell did you do?" he muttered, gently unwrapping it. Underneath, with a little bit of extra rubbing from the already blood-soaked towel, he found a long, jagged wound. He frowned. That didn't make any sense. Did she get hit on the side of her head by a vibro or something?
He rummaged through his pockets, producing a kolto syringe, and then through her bag, where he managed to find another bandage. Grimacing – he'd never been a fan of needles, despite their usefulness – he gently injected her with the kolto and then pressed the bandage to her head.
"Hope this does it," he said with a frown, looking back over his work. "I really should find a doctor, but I don't . . ."
Carth watched her for a while, leaving once to make sure they could stay in the apartment and to pay the fifty-cred month's rent (frakking rip-off), and get informed about a doctor just over to the northeast who might be able to help him.
So, hoping that leaving her to her defenses wouldn't be too disastrous, he quickly wandered his way through the street outside, now crowded with onlookers and Sith soldiers investigating the wreck, to find this doctor the landlord had mentioned. It didn't take him long to find the clinic, and to walk in through the open door.
"Can I help you?" A dark-complexioned man asked from the other side of the room, quickly coming towards him.
"Are you Zelka Forn?" Carth asked.
The man nodded. "I am. I run this clinic. Why?"
"I was told you might be able to help me out. There's an . . . acquaintance of mine–"
"If you bring him here –"
"Uh, her, and bringing her here is the problem." Carth bit his lip for a second, trying to figure out the best way to explain his predicament. "She, uh, we were heading for the cantina when the p – escape pod crashed into the walkway, and she was hit by a piece of –"
"Where was she hit?" Zelka stepped away, seemingly gathering up some supplies.
"It's a head wound, which is why I don't want to bring her here – I've already moved her enough."
"Did you head into the South Apartments?"
"Yeah. It was the closest place –"
Zelka returned, a black bag in hand. "Gurney, I'm making a call. Watch the clinic."
The squirrely looking man by the door nodded. "I'll call you if anyone comes in."
"Lead the way . . ." He paused. "I don't believe I got your name, sir."
"My name? I'm, uh, Dre. Dre VanMeer."
Zelka studied him with a dubious look, and Carth swore silently. He'd never been a good liar. "Sure you are, Mr. VanMeer."
Carth silently walked back to the apartment with him, skirting the crowd around the escape pod. "She's right through here," Carth said, palming open the door. Zelka ducked through as it caught on something in the mechanism. "I'll have to fix that."
Zelka had already reached the bed he'd set Anna down on, pulling off his carefully applied bandage. "The pod landed over an hour ago?"
"I believe so."
Zelka bit the inside of his lip. "She's been unconscious the entire time?"
"As far as I know. She hasn't moved, at least."
He rubbed the back of his neck. "If this wasn't such a bad injury – but that's . . ." he sighed. "What I really need to do is a scan on her to make sure there isn't any brain damage. The wound itself is bad enough to cause it . . . and if she's been out this long . . ." He turned back to Carth, reapplying a clean bandage. "We need to get her to the clinic. I can't care for her here."
"I – I'm not sure that's such a good idea," Carth stuttered. Zelka crossed his arms.
"She wasn't hit by debris, was she?"
Carth sighed, giving up. "No." Zelka waited for a second, as if waiting for him to elaborate. He shook his head. He wasn't about to endanger both of them, even if Zelka seemed trustworthy. But the doctor seemed to figure it out anyway.
"Don't worry. Your secret is safe with me. I have no love of the Sith." Zelka looked down at Anna, then back at Carth. "Do you think you can safely get her to the clinic?"
"I – I might be able to carry her without jarring her too much."
"At this point it might not even matter. Come on."
Carth gently lifted the still-unconscious woman into his arms and followed Zelka out the door, hoping the medic would have a better explanation for the current situation than he did if they got stopped.
They managed to make it back to the clinic without incident, and Zelka motioned for Carth to set Anna on a central exam table. Gurney closed the door. "Now, let's see this better." Zelka turned on the light above the table, bathing Anna's slack face in eerie shadows as he tilted her head to the side and removed the bandage again. "Now, did this happen in the crash?"
"Before we got into the pod she had some sort of wound in the same spot. I don't know how it happened."
Zelka nodded. "It's just . . . strange. Do you know where she got the previous wound?"
Carth shook his head. "I don't know much about her before she was transferred onto the ship, to be honest."
"I wouldn't expect you to." Zelka bandaged the wound tightly, then moved some sort of elevated paddle from one end of the exam table to over Anna's head. "Let's see what the scan says. Hopefully it isn't second impact syndrome."
"Would you be able to do anything?"
"Apart from go through her pockets and look for loose credits?" Zelka shook his head.
Carth watched, rather in fascination, as an image of what he could only assume was Anna's brain appeared on a screen near the exam table. "There it is."
"There what is?"
"I'm not sure." Zelka motioned to an area on the scan. "That doesn't usually look like that."
"What does it usually look like?" Zelka glared at him, and Carth fell silent.
"It –This area," he motioned again. "Seems to be linked mostly to long-term and some short-term memory functions. But I've never seen it . . . almost augmented like this. Nerve tissue – brain tissue – doesn't regenerate. Not like this, at least."
"What do you think could have caused it?"
Zelka shrugged. "Some Jedi have advanced healing powers that may be able to repair brain structures, and I would assume that the Sith have some who possess similar capabilities. Apart from that, I do not believe there is another group with the technology to do so." Carth chewed on his lip, staring down at the unconscious woman on the table. "You suspect something?"
"I might," Carth muttered. "But I might be wrong."
Something in the back of his head thought he wasn't.
#
Where am I?
Her eyes shot open. She didn't recognize the room she was in.
Who the hell am I?
She started to sit up, a low groan escaping her lips.
"Are you okay?"
Before she thought about it, she grabbed for the man's blaster and leveled it at his face. "Who are you?"
The dark-haired man stepped back, hands slightly raised. "Whoa. Anna. It's okay."
"I believe I asked for your name." Her hand wavered. Holding it up was difficult. Anna. I guess that's me?
The man looked incredibly confused. "Carth. Carth Onasi. Can . . . can I get my blaster back?"
She glared at him, but didn't move the blaster. "Republic or Sith?"
"If I was a Sith, I would have shot you by now."
Anna paused. "Good call." She flipped the blaster and handed it back to him. He put it back on his belt, and she struggled to sit up. He helped her. "Where am I?"
"Taris. What do you remember?"
She squeezed her eyes shut. Remembering was becoming really, really painful. "I remember . . ." She bit her lip. "Um . . . We were on a ship, right? The Endar Spire?" Things were starting to come back to her. Kyjjl. That's the other part. "I-I . . . I don't remember almost anything. At all."
There was another long silence. Anna finally spoke again, rubbing her forehead. "So what happened?"
"We got attacked over Taris – where we are now. You fought your way to the escape pods just in time – the ship blew right after we cleared it." Carth sighed. "I – I guess the force of the explosion propelled the ship down to the surface, which threw off our approach vector and meant I couldn't slow us down for impact. Luckily I pulled you into this apartment before the Sith showed up, and the doctor from the clinic nearby took a look at you."
"Oh. Well. I guess I owe you my life then. Thanks."
"Don't worry about it. Besides, I'm going to need your help."
Anna grimaced. "I'm assuming that this has something to do with the fact that the term 'Sith' was used in your last statement?"
"The planet's under a quarantine. They're looking for Bastila. Fortunately –" Carth fastened that jacket. Anna was secretly hoping it'd been destroyed in the crash. It was one of the few things she remembered. "That means they won't be looking for us, which gives us a little more mobility than she would have."
"Bastila – she's that Jedi girl, right?"
"Yeah. I shoved her into an escape pod not long before you got there. You were part of her team, remember?"
Anna frowned. "Not really." She could feel Carth's searching eyes on her. Man's more paranoid than a nerf. Wonder why? "Any idea where to start looking?"
"A number of escape pods crashed in the Undercity. I'd say that there would be the best place."
"Good." Anna reached for a jacket she found conveniently placed nearby. "How long have I been out?"
"A little less than a week, now."
"That explains why I'm starving."
Carth rolled his eyes. "Strangely, I owe you dinner."
"How did that come about?"
"Conversation in the escape pod. Come on. There's a cantina not too far away, if you feel okay to travel."
"Hon, I'm like a Wookiee. If there's food involved, I'm well enough to travel."
"I'll keep that in mind, sister."
Anna started to get dressed as Carth installed new energy cells into his blasters. The silence was finally too deafening. "So, Onasi."
"Carth is fine."
"Okay, Carth. Since there's a quarantine, and we're gonna be stuck here for a while . . . I want to know some more about you."
Carth shot upright, badly-concealed surprise shooting across his face. "Me?"
"Did I stutter, flyboy?"
Kriff, she was so bloody irreverent. Carth glared at her, but it quickly softened. She probably meant well.
He muttered something about being a star-pilot in the Mandalorian wars and hating the Sith and how the Sith killed senselessly – and then Telos fell out of his mouth before he could stop it.
"My homeworld was one of the first that fell to Revan's fleet. He bombed it into submission, and there wasn't a damn thing the Republic could do to stop it!"
Carth snapped his mouth shut, looking anywhere but at his companion. She had stopped lacing up her boots, and her eyes were piercing him like a pair of blasters. He silently swore. Galaxy-damned mouth of mine—
Meanwhile, Anna stared at him before squinting slightly and returning to her boot. She looked up to find him staring at her. "What?"
"I don't know. Usually people say . . . something." Carth wasn't going to lie, but it was marginally refreshing to not hear the typical socially-acceptable phrases relating to losing an entire planet.
Anna shrugged irreverently, tying a lace. "It wasn't your fault, Carth," she said finally.
"I never said it was."
"Sounded like it," she murmured.
"I did everything I could to stop it. It doesn't mean I failed them. I – I didn't." Carth's voice was level.
He winced as Anna's eyes settled back on his face. They shimmered with some shock from his outburst and a little bit of discomfort at how to respond, and one eyebrow was cocked in confusion. She finally swallowed, pulling her hair back into a quick bun.
"I . . . I, uh, well," she said finally. "I say we put a quashing on that awkward conversation and move on."
"I agree."
She stood, stretching, and grabbed her vibroswords. "About that dinner you owe me?"
"I'm taking you over to Forn first. I want him to check your head." At her glare, he shrugged. "People want to kill us. I'm not going anywhere until I know you're able to protect yourself."
