Signs of Life

By JalendaviLady

Chapter 7

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Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars.

If you recognize any characters, locations, or things in the following story, George Lucas owns them.

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Leia gently placed a hand over the breathmask as Anakin started to stir slightly. It had become a symbol between them during the long hours in the shuttle, waiting for the medics to come. //Shh. You're safe, Father. No rush for you to wake up.//

A sleepy Force-yawn of understanding. //Do I get to leave the med-center earlier if I wake up now instead of five minutes from now?//

//Not a chance. You do have visitors, though.//

//Can they wait? 'm tired.//

//They're waiting, and I think some of them are starting to worry.//

//Am I going to regret 'waking up'? No shocking news?//

//Depends.//

//Oh dear.// He slowly opened his eyes. Leia drew her hand back.

"Good morning." Leia didn't think she'd ever heard Mon's voice quite that shaky before.

"Hey, big guy." Han semi-affectionately patted him on the shoulder.

"Morning, sir," Veers and Piett said as one.

He smiled weakly. "You two come to the party alone, or did you bring the Lady with you?"

"Lady and her crew,'' Piett reassured him.

"Was the escort angry?"

"Few dozen dead, medcenter half full of the injured. And the Lady is limping."

Anakin winced.

"Huh?" Han said.

"The Executor is commonly referred to by her devoted crew as the Lady Ex, or, among her upper crew, as the Lady," Anakin explained. "Her escort is the Imperial Intelligence men on board. I think for a while we had the Intelligence guys convinced there had been an outbreak of a fertility goddess cult on board the ship, what with the odes some of the crew were writing in honor of 'the Lady of the Endless Skies'."

"Don't forget the drunken ballads," Piett added.

"Or the abnormal cadences the stormtroopers whispered on patrol." Veers rolled his eyes. "I almost felt sorry for the officers on comm. duty when that started."

"How bad, or dare I ask?" Han laughed.

"You really don't want to know," the three ex-Imperials said as one. They looked at each other in surprise and laughed.

Leia suddenly realized that the upper command crew of the Executor had not merely been colleagues.

They had been friends.

...

Anakin joked around with Veers and Piett for a few more minutes, trying to ignore the aches in his broken body and the questions in his mind.

He finally couldn't stand not knowing any longer. "How's Luke doing?"

"They think he'll be fine, with time and care," Leia told him gently.

"How bad?"

"He'll be in the medcenter for a while. The medics don't want you to know the details just yet." Mon patted his newly-replaced left hand through the sheets. "And, quite frankly, until either you or Luke is fit to wander around the medcenter, I don't see a reason you need to know anything more than that Luke is going to be fine eventually, is getting the best care we can give him, and is expected to make a full recovery."

"Leia? How are you handling all this stuff?"

"Fairly well," she replied, resting a hand on his shoulder. "Haven't had much time to think about anything, though. I spent most of the past day asleep."

He tried to reach a hand up to where hers was, but failed. I'm so weak right now... Why am I so weak...

She smoothed back part of the edge of the sheet until she could hold his hand. //This what you wanted, Father?//

He gave her the Force-equivalent of a nod. //Thanks. Just let me know you're near.// "And my situation here is...?"

"That you won't be leaving for a long time either," Piett answered. "And you aren't supposed to get details until you're stronger."

Anakin let out a long sigh, then paused. I shouldn't be able to do that. "This is only an oxygen mask?"

Veers nodded.

"But how...?"

"No details until you're stronger," Mon told him softly, voice losing the shaky edge it had acquired earlier. "For now, you just need to know that you're going to be here for a while, for both treatment and therapy afterwards."

Then why would the spirits of the past contact me now? It's not like I can do anything right now.

He yawned, suddenly exhausted. How long since I was out of the suit for this amount of time?

Leia squeezed his hand. "Shh. You're still injured."

Mon tentatively patted his shoulder. "Sleep if you need to. No one expects you to do anything for a while except heal."

Anakin summoned his courage and looked her in the eye weakly. "Why... pardon... me?"

"People spoke in your favor. You should note that it only covers anything you did before you turned back. It's a second chance, nothing more and nothing less. A few people were quite vehement about it. Most interest in current events on a small scale that Biggs has shown in a long time, actually."

"Who?"

"Biggs Darklighter. One of Luke's friends from Tatooine, his best friend in fact. Nearly died trying to destroy the first Death Star. Got hit, banged into the trench, spun out. He somehow managed to get far enough out to survive the blast when it blew."

I remember that X-Wing. Oh Force, I nearly killed my son's best friend... His breathing suddenly came in sobbing gasps for a moment.

When he had calmed again, Mon Mothma continued. "He's been in the medcenter ever since. He needs extreme vertebrae reconstruction and no one in the Alliance can do the procedure. His case is complicated and no one who's defected so far has the skill and experience necessary to keep from hurting him even more. Everyone's been trying to keep his hopes up, but as time goes on he keeps sinking into himself."

"Can you tell him that while I don't deserve his support, I thank him for it, and that I am deeply sorry about what happened?"

She nodded. "I think he'd like to hear that. Won't change his condition, but I think he's figured out who was piloting the TIE that shot him."

Anakin winced.

"He knew before he supported you, Anakin. And he was very vehement about the whole thing."

Anakin felt himself drifting towards sleep again.

He opened his mouth to speak again, but was asleep before a single additional word crossed his lips.

...