AN: IMPORTANT STORY NOTE!

I am going to re-make this story, I hate how big it is. Right now I have 26 chapters that aren't even close to done and I just feel like it's sloppy. For those of you who followed/favorited/reviewed I have left this story here. But it's honestly way harder to attempt to re arrange and edit the chapters and updating them singularly. Honestly I tried a couple a weeks ago and I got confused. Very sorry for the confusion, I hope the changes I'm making will be more cohesive!

Chapter 14: Business is Doing Terribly

It wasn't any landing to be envious of. Ben hit the back of his head on impact given he wasn't properly strapped down around his head into the helmet like structure. Enwa was screaming and it took him probably a full minute to come back to the physical reality. It took him even long than that to figure out his vision hadn't failed and it was the emergency lights that had extinguished due to the hissing water spout that was escaping into the pod at an alarming rate. Ben remembered his terror quickly and shoved it aside with a vengeance that surprised him. Enwa was screaming.

Screaming

It actually made his ears thrum like something had turned on the volume after he'd lived in silence. Was she panicking? Dying? Angry? He couldn't tell. But he was fumbling at the straps that held him in his chair. He was so scared of that sound he could have forgotten about the water rushing in if it wasn't already around his knees. Finally free he moved toward her blindly and he could feel her shaking even in her own restraints which she hadn't removed yet. Maybe she couldn't? Ben couldn't see in the dark and he started groping at her blindly. He felt all of her that he wasn't supposed to touch and much of it was familiar, she didn't even seem to notice until he stumbled upon something horrifyingly unfamiliar. The crack where the water was coming in was right near her knee... And her leg had obviously suffered for it.

He knew, with a lurch of his stomach that some of the slickness he was touching was definitely not water. He'd only skimmed his fingers across her thigh in the barest of ways but he felt with certainty that her femur jutted through her leg. He also knew that the sound she was making wasn't solely with her mouth she was actually screaming inside of his head. He felt dark fingers clutching desperately at his temple, attempting to Force him away from her. The darkness of the pod combined with the screams actually felt like more sinister than the water that now filled up. It was an unsettling realization that she was shouting over her own voice in his head, her voice raw and gasping.

"Get out get out! GET OUT!" she was shrieking and he didn't know at what. But he could feel it crawling all over him in the dark. He knew, logically, that it wasn't anything physical. For a second he let the feeling paralyze him was it death? Was he feeling death's hands on his head?

Before his mental facilities were up and running he was lunging back at her, this time with his mind. He put her to sleep instantly. Not comprehending what he was doing he was undoing her straps with hands that were steady but unsure and he was picking up her limp body.

If their escape pod had cracked because of the pressure of the depth they were underneath the oceans of Sembla; they would die. If they were too deep for him to carry her safely, then they would die. His fingers went for the approximate location of the underwater breathing devices. He wished he hand the time or hands to grab at the emergency kit but helplessly he realized it might not do her much good. With her body pressed up on him in the water that now filled the pod, he could feel the bone jut into his own thigh. He shoved the breathing piece in his mouth and shoved it into her lax lips as well and took that moment to thurst his hand upward to find the lever that would confirm their release of the door. With a mystifying relief, Ben felt the sea water crash over him. His fear was there, just was the knowledge that this was the place that he'd had nightmares about. But there was more than that, there was determination.

Sembla, luckily, was not a planet inhabited by a surplus of predators. It had been cut off from war in the same way it appeared cut off from a particularly hiearchal food chain that could inhabit planets, but that didn't mean he didn't have to be careful One positive of the water would have been that he didn't have to carry the girl along with him. He glanced back at her, by now his eyes stung so badly that he couldn't feel it. She looked peaceful, having been forced asleep and Ben realized with a painful cry of relief that the fact he could see meant they were not deep in the water. He began to drag her way from the pod, half swimming and half using the ground to bounce himself forward, he indiscriminately went the way he was facing and kept his eyes strained around them. Dragging her left a cloud of blood behind them he noted that it was mysteriously plentiful if it was just from mangled leg her leg so he began to expect it wasn't the only source. But it filled him with even more drive instead of panic, his breathing desperate in the tube he'd stuck between his lips. He couldn't tell if he was running toward saftey, running from the crash, or attempting to get away from whatever darkness fingered the grooves of his brain even now. Something had been in there. He couldn't eliminate the feeling that it still was.

The first time his head bounced above water felt himself cry silently, his body trembling with the heaves of relief before he continued plunging toward the shore. Finally his head broke fully through the water and he could walk on land more fully. By the time he got to shore enough where he would have to carry Enwa he would have collapsed in exhaustion if the light of a mockingly peaceful sun hadn't cast a harsh glow on his companion. Despite the fact he'd seen the bumbles stemming from the device in her mouth to demonstrate breath had been going in and out of her lungs, she looked quite dead. He splashed down toward her clenching her face in his hands. He could feel her mind, he knew she wasn't dead and he had to keep going.

Keep going all the way to shore.

When he hit it, he dragged her onto the sad and pushed the wet tendrils of hair away from her and threw the thing from her mouth to the side along with his. He heaved in the aggressive sobs that could now hit the dry air and he only had a split second to realize he was going to vomit. He disgusted himself by doing so too near to hear and even before he was finished tossing up his guts he pushed her away from him. Having finished, he thought of washing his mouth out with water but he didn't have the energy. He had to move quickly. Taking off his shirt he was ripping it into wide strips with his teeth. He didn't want to look at her leg, dreaded it, but he attempted to clear his mind and disassociate himself from the task. He pretended he was in class and pretending to care for wounds like he was in an exam with Luke watching over him silently. He observed the bone with detachment even as his eyes filled and his throat stuck. Her skin was molted purple around it and it wept with a terrifying amount of blood. But really it was the bone, stark white even against her skin, that really had him horrified. There was a strong possibility she would lose the leg, but he couldn't think about that either. Wouldn't think about it. He instead tied a tourniquet even as his vision began to blur and darken at the edges. Slowly he'd been drooping over as he worked, eventually his head had hit her chest as he tied the knot on the tourniquet. He laid down next to her half over her with his face in the crook of her neck and he fell into a sleep that he wouldn't wake from without a great form of stimulation.

...

That form of stimulation came from the shouting in his head that he registered as coming from Enwa. He woke up to the night, shivering in the air despite it being quite warm and they had both dried in their stillness. The sand stuck to him and he drew back enough to stare at her. The motion brought a pain so sincere that it seemed to pass straight through his eyes and down his spine. The hit from the impact of the pod onto the ocean floor had been forgotten in his adrenaline, but it was nauseatingly present now. There were other parts of him that hurt, he realized he might have broken his toe and the sea water stung the scrapes on his arms and feet that he'd got from plunging through the ocean's floor indiscriminately, but he would survive. It was hilarious to think he could survive that. He laughed at the thought, it seemed utterly ridiculous that he might wake up tomorrow and brush his teeth even having felt death's hands on his mind.

The delirious smile faded while he looked at Enwa. She was having a nightmare, muttering now and drawing in hiccuping breaths as if she wasn't sure the oxygen was working in her sleep. He didn't need much light to see that she had a fever. Even in the light of the moons he could see the sweat on her brow and her upper lip.

Suddenly her body strained underneath him, her limbs digging into the sand with the force of her back arching. He guessed this put sudden weight on her open fracture and immediately to follow she jerked awake with a gasp. He actually watched her attempt to focus on him and fail, her gaze candescent and rolling. She groaned again her hands raising of their own accord to push at him with surprising force. He gripped the offending appendages but dragged himself off of her. Moving made him incredibly aware of what was almost certainly a concussion on his part. Perhaps it was the concussion that made her look like she was hazy at her edges, almost dewy like she glowed. Flushed and pale at the same time he realized this almost certainly depicted that she was battling the infection probably set in from her open fracture.

All at once her gaze seemed to steady on him with an alarming intensity. He freed her hands mostly out of surprise for the sudden focus- she was reaching for him. "Ben, Ben, Ben..."

He swallowed at the tone in her voice, horse and desperate. She didn't appear to have anything more to say, falling silent as she pawed at his face and shoulders. He winced as her fingers passed over the wounds he didn't realize he had on his face. Every bit of him hurt, it did not surprise him that he didn't notice the wounds and bruises specifically that she identified with her touch. He took a moment in her distraction to steel himself to look at her leg. The nausea from before polluted his stomach and he had to swallow against it. Though he was fairly confident that even if the bone looked clean and her skin was unblemished, the sight was still so plainly wrong to illicit concern. But it was certainly not clean and the skin was certainly not unblemished. The infection from the bone mixed with bruising all in combination with the very obvious femur jutting through her hamstring was enough to make him spin even when he'd been inspecting this.

"How bad is it...?" She said, sounding rather detached from the situation. He realized then that he'd held on to her hands subconsciously and had stilled them where they lay on his own chest and he felt the overwhelming urge to cry.

He realized then that he didn't mind being stranded, having to face one of his biggest fear that would undoubtedly lead to further trauma or the ship he knew was at the bottom of the ocean. Stars, he would be fine if the council wouldn't let him become a master for another 10 years after the colossal failure that they had faced before even beginning their first mission. This would have all been acceptable if he wasn't faced with the very obvious sight of his oldest friend potentially dying in front of him.

He let out a shuddering breath, allowing the hot tears to well up for only a second as he pressed both of her captured hands to his face. This seemed to be an answer in itself to her question.

He tried to think of a solution, but his mind was frustratingly blank. The voices that so often called to him both waking and asleep were frustratingly silent. This was when he clued into the silence, her voice was strikingly absent from the mix as well. Alarmed he looked to her and saw she had already been staring.

"It's you..." She answered the question he hadn't even gotten the chance to ask. "Something's blocking you... you feel fuzzy." She looked to the wounds visible to her and probed his consciousness. Normally so full of barriers and life, he felt more like a museum. Open to the public but unresponsive. Without an immediate connection his face lacked the level of expression she was so used to being able to read, but even so she felt that the situation had them set in a bad way.

"I'm going to pick you up." The declaration would have sounded more compelling if he hadn't had to sniff away the tears that threatened to spill over in the moment. "With luck there is a Vurk settlement nearby... But we also need flesh water to clean your wound." It sounded stupid, he knew. But he also had to do something. Logic wasn't sticking in his head, he was gripping at the swiftly moving thoughts but unable to catch one.

She groaned, "Ben...your head feels scrambled, you aren't thinking clearly..." He felt an indignant flash at her accusation and then had to smile. At least she was aware enough to admonish him. "...I don't even think you're connected to your Force...It feels like something has broken the connection." He reached for the connection instinctively, finding it buzzing in his head but ineffective.

"...I hit my head...It's temporary." He ignored the case studies that he was recalling where a head injury had been caused to eliminate a user's connection to the Force. Like a lobotomy, or a stroke, it's like your mind lost the connection. He could still feel a dim thrum of it at his fingertips, but the absence in his mind was eerie. Even so, it also gave him a sense of peace. As fuzzy as he felt, he also noted an almost pleasant quiet, free from the chaotic waves that threatened to pull him under and pull him into temper so often. Ignoring her trained eyes on him was much easier when he couldn't actually feel her trying to step into his mind, Ben reached beneath her delicately to lift her from the sand. She made almost a valley with her body, undoubtedly having squirmed during the hours they slept until she ridged into the sand like she was trying to make roots. He got his arms under her delicately, leaning toward her as he shifted his legs so that he could lift her onto his lap before standing. However, the moment he put his hands under her right thigh, she cried out in alarm, straining against him.

"Fuck...fuck..." Her hands flew again, attempting to swat him off, pull him closer, and to desist his movement all at once. Her chest heaved and she'd begun shaking again and the clenched jaw painted the very clear reality that he could not move her. Given that the injury to her femur meant that he couldn't lift her to fit in between his arms, also meant he couldn't put her on his back for the same reason. Suddenly the valley of sand she'd sunk into looked far more like a coffin than a bed.

Attempting to stay calm was useless but he tried anyway. "I have patches, they won't do you much good, but they will help the skin..." He didn't really want to put them on her, knowing that healing the skin around the open bone would not be good. But he had to do something. It was this drive that pushed him to the holster next to his saber. His hands brushed over the handle for a reverent second before he removed the strips from their, thankfully, water proof packing. The strips were small, meant to be used as a temporary patch for when reinforcements would show up with more extensive supplies, but they were something. " I can't move you like this, but I'm well enough to move." He didn't even know if he was telling the truth, and even through her heat she looked at him with a level understanding that he was being an idiot. He ignored the look more easily now that he couldn't feel the questioning of his sanity through their connection.

"I'll be back before the sun comes up..." He thoughtfully glanced at the moons above them. From where they've landed he guessed that was only in a couple hours. He would go no further than an half hour walk in one direction and then promptly circle back. He took two steps back from her to realize how small she was on the sand. And even that did not betray the immense importance that she held. It might have even increased it. "I'll be back..." His voice had faded to the point where he thought that she wouldn't hear it but she nodded with her eyes closed.

Unwilling to glance back at her, Ben's legs began running before he even made the conscious choice that walking was not a luxury he felt like utilizing.

...

AN: I graduated this weekend! So hence delay, I forgot anything existed. Now I will be applying to teaching jobs and the prospect is mildly terrifying and I like to write this while I'm waiting for it! I love this chapter so I hope it was worth the wait even if it was short.