Signs of Life
By JalendaviLady
Chapter 15
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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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It was quiet at night in the medcenter, particularly in the long-term care wing. Anakin was finally alone, after promising Leia he had no plans to spontaneously become one with the Force during the night and that the vital-sign monitors were there for a reason, along with the newly-placed call button.
It was dark and quiet, the closest thing to the proper atmosphere for deep meditation he was likely to get for a while. Spending the night in a low-level healing trance certainly wouldn't do any harm. He closed his eyes and tried to relax.
A knock on the door, then Kendalina, the Force-sensitive medic – must remember to ask her about that later – stuck her head in the room. "Anakin? You still awake?"
"Barely," he yawned. "What's going on? Midnight bed check?"
"Nope. Odd emergency visitation hours."
Anakin lifted an eyebrow.
"Garlen Mohandai – the medic who's been keeping an eye on Luke for the past week and a half – just told me the general consensus is that the bacta's healed all it's going to heal and that they might as well let him spent the rest of his recovery awake and aware and out of the sticky tank."
"So he'll be awake within the next day...?"
"Probably within the next hour, actually. And, from what Garlen observed the time before when Luke woke up and what I and the others have observed of you, we're breaking the traditional 'no visitors in the crash rooms' custom."
"Luke was in one of the crash rooms?" Anakin lifted up instantly, barely noticing that he had just sat up on his own for the first time since the Battle of Endor.
"'Is' would be a bit more appropriate. Offered the best chance at care with the best security opportunities, since that is one of the deepest areas of the medcenter. Right now most of the trouble makers haven't figured out which of the 3 medcenters aboard ship you and Luke are in; some even think that you are on the Executor right now, and both Piett and Mothma are doing their darndest to keep that illusion going for the time being. Guards wander all three medcenters here and all those on the Executor. We're fairly sure that the one gunman who has made it anywhere near you was originally gunning for Biggs, precisely because everyone aboard ship who has been with the Alliance for any length of time knows where Biggs lives."
He lost his inheritance and nearly his life because of me... If I hadn't been there... He settled back down somewhat, feeling tears start to form at the corners of his eyes.
Kendalina was staring at him. "Anakin, get your mind out of that well-worn rut right now. Thinking like that isn't going to help or even change anything right now." She started to transfer the hanging IV bags to the wheelchair-bed. "Just relax. Biggs knew what he was getting into when he started supporting you and he certainly knows how vulnerable he is. Now, can you shift yourself over and into this thing, or do you need help?"
He managed, muddled mind slowly understanding that he was being allowed to see Luke for the first time since everything had happened. Since they had been sedated on the shuttle. "How hurt is he?"
"The physical damage is mostly healed. There are a few new scars, but that was expected, given what he's been through. Mentally, he's intact. The one time he's been allowed to wake up before, he was fully lucid, remembered what had happened, and was quite worried about you. Probably going to need access to a psychologist or mindHealer eventually, but he's still got the mental faculties he entered the fight with."
"So, what's wrong with him?"
"Muscle trauma from the fight, probably manifesting as physical weakness and occasional random aches. That will likely lessen with time. And some very mild though systemic motor nerve damage. Whatever that Force-lightning he encountered was supposed to do, it certainly had effects that didn't show until after he'd been aboard ship. That damage wasn't registered until the scan just before we put him in bacta... and if we hadn't gotten him in there, it likely would have continued to get worse."
"And that's going to affect him in what way?"
Kendalina started pushing him out the door. "Slowed reaction times, at the very least. The only good thing any of us can find in it is that he'll be forced to not do things for himself until after the muscle weakness is mostly gone. From what we can tell, he's improving over time, but we are, quite frankly, unsure about how long that is going to last. No one's seen anything like this before. Then again, none of us have seen Force-induced injuries before."
Silence.
"Anakin? You still down there?"
"He needs someone familiar with the injuries he has and the methods that produced them. Unfortunately, the general galaxy known to the Alliance is currently devoid of people with such knowledge."
She sighed. "That would seem to be the case."
And the SkyLords may or may not have that knowledge. They weren't recorded as being in any of the major Darkside vs. Lightside wars of the last few millennia. Granted, there may have been wars I don't even know about, but the chances are slim. So, there are no clear sources for such knowledge. Luke doesn't have much of a chance of skilled, Force-aided care.
She patted his shoulder. "Somehow, things will work out. He's strong, Anakin. He tends to bounce back quicker than one would expect when he gets hurt."
"He inherited some of my minor Force-gifts, then," he whispered. The décor of the halls they moved through was changing from intentionally soothing colors and shapes to something more utilitarian.
"You have a healing gift?"
"It's minor, very minor. And unpredictable. It always seemed like the more effort I put into trying to use it, the less it responded. I'm probably useless in this situation; I care so much about Luke that there's no way the gift would manifest itself. Even if it weren't so unpredictable, I was never given the chance to develop it or any medical knowledge to aid me in using it."
"Oh?"
"Basic structure of the Jedi had three branches: healer, fighter, scientist. There were elite members of all three branches: masterhealer, weaponsmaster, and labmaster. Elite learned from elite. Healers and scientists had specialized Force-skills as their dominant gifts; everyone else got lumped into the fighter category. I happen to be most skilled in manipulating energy from one form to another and just generally dealing with the stuff. Also means I'm good with electrically-based machines and have an affinity for working with and just being around droids. Piloting things is like breathing for me, although that's only partially related to that gift."
"So you've been a grunt soldier or a lackey all your life."
"Or worse."
They made a sharp turn into a narrow hall. "You sure you can handle this?"
"I need to see my son. My son probably needs to see me. Whether I can handle it or not is immaterial, as it must be done."
"Spoken like a true grunt soldier."
They both chuckled for a moment, until Anakin fell silent.
After a moment, Kendalina turned the wheelchair-bed around a corner and said in a very quiet and restrained voice, "Garlen?"
"No one saw you?" A head poked around a corner.
"No one saw us."
"And I didn't feel any danger, although I will admit my Force-abilities are a bit jumbled right now." He blinked into the darkness, pale eyes seeing more detail in the darkness than most humans would.
Blue eyes had been bred into the human species for low-light, brown for the blinding light of tropical summers and the still-bright light of tropical winters. Generations upon generations had lived among the stars, and even after thousands of years humanity retained such traits. Eye color, in particular, had become even more varied over time, adding shades upon shades to the potentials. There was still a vast array of diversity in any given planet's population, but each world seemed to have 3 or 4 common shades and a sprinkling of the others.
On every world Anakin had ever been on, pale blue eyes had been rare.
On a few of the more primitive worlds, where tribal societies were making their first contacts in ages with the greater universe, people had pointed at him and called him a 'demon-child' not for his Force-powers, but for his eyes. Alien races making first contacts had often been more accepting of the too-tall, too-powerful, too-strange young Jedi than members of his own species.
But at times like this, in the darker corners of the big spacefaring ships that had been his home off and on for his entire life, they served him well.
"He hasn't woken up yet," Garlen whispered, "but there's nothing keeping him from doing so."
Another few feet, passing a desk covered in papers, datapads, and the like, and another turn...