PART THREE- Simple Choices
I. Inner Potential
He tries to open his eyes but can't. Doesn't possess the strength. Fights to breathe, pain tears through his side, he coughs and cries out. He's shaken until he protests incoherently to stop.
Voices filter through the agony. Unrecognisable…but familiar. Gruff and edged with hard practicality.
"Sarge, he's fried-"
Coughs again, cries out, tries to roll onto his side and finds he can't move. He's being held down roughly, hands pressing the plates of his shoulder guards against the raw, burnt skin beneath. Struggles, yells but can't get free. Coughs again and this time the pain is too intense, mirrored by the energy that surrounds him.
He recognises it.
The Force.
He yells, screams hysterically. The shout resounds about him instead of passing through his lips.
Nomorenomorenomorenomore….
Harsh words follow. A sharp jab punctures through the mesh of his armour's underlay, drives into the flesh of his thigh. He yells again. Flails. More torment thrown back at him twofold. It's crippling…all he wants is escape.
"Settle him down before I hit him," someone growls in a moment of lucidity before the cloudy stim fogs his mind and takes the edge off the pain.
The response sounds like "I can't…" Or is it "He won't…"?
One final attempt to get up, to move, to flee irrationally before the stim takes its hold. Pushed down.
Shouting, someone is shouting at him, but while he doesn't understand a word, he can feel the emotion through the Force. The anger and impatience, directed at him only serves to intensify his awareness…
Driven to the limit of his endurance, he repulses the energy, smashes the mirror of pain walled about him. In it's place, a new barrier is built, constructed of sheer will, of pain, of determination. It repels the Force, shunts the pain aside until slowly, the pain dissolves, and with it, his awareness.
Thank you.
He's never been so grateful in his life.
Finally, the stim does its job and Davrel is sent into drug-induced coma.
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While he sleeps, he has odd dreams. Swathed in fragments of memory and laced with hopes and fears from past and present, all haunt him even as one dissolves into the next.
He is a child, following his mother about on errands in a dusty market…and then a mighty warrior crowing glorious victory over a battlefield of slaughtered enemies…and next a mercenary, working alongside Kamran on an Exchange job, actually seeing respect in his older brother's eyes for the first time…a teenager, indulging in adolescent rebellion against the local authorities of some backwater dump…and at last, standing in the centre of the battle circle as champion at long last…
And so it progresses, one mirage after another, until he comes to realise something.
The single constant is the Jedi woman, the Exile. First a merchant, and then a slave, a rival merc, a fellow reveller, and finally as his defeated adversary in the circle, she is always there in the end, always there to sour his blissful ignorance and ruin his illusions.
In all, she repeats the same thing to him, in a variety of costume and roles, always with the same voice, same tone.
"It's in there, and you can feel it for yourself now…"
No matter how many times he recoils from her, flees and denies her, she always reappears to ruin the next dream.
He's trapped.
Another dream…this time standing in the centre of a podium, a roaring, bloodthirsty crowd of spectators surrounds him, exaltation flooding him as he waits for the presenter to hand him a trophy. He recognises the scene as the Syndicate Games, and he is this year's champion. He turns and she is there, the trophy in her hands and that same knowing expression on her face.
"It's in there…" She tries to offer the trophy to him with outstretched hands. "…and you can feel it for yourself now…"
This time when he flees into another dream, he runs far enough to penetrate consciousness.
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There is quiet now when he wakes. The room is dark and his skin feels as if it were on fire, his neck swollen so badly he is hardly able to swallow. Breathing hurts. With every inhalation and exhalation, a vicious agony lances across his right side. The smell of chemicals fills the room. He recognises the sickly-sour scent of kolto. When he attempts to open his eyes, he discovers he can't. Bandages are taped over them.
Not knowing where he is, or what has happened, or why his body hurts so badly, he makes an attempt to sit up. It fails, his body unable to support his weight. The fall backward is the most painful of all. The bedsheet tears at his skin like sandpaper. It feels as if he's been flayed. Fire races along his right side. His hoarse cry of pain leads to wracked coughing that rattles in his chest and scratches at his swollen throat.
But there is one thing he can take consolation in.
The barrier of determination holds fast. Everything about him-except the pain-is held at arm's length. It's a comfort amidst his body's injuries.
Unable to move, unable to open his eyes, he wonders what has happened to have caused so much torture. He truly can't remember ever being incapable of managing pain. Hasn't he been trained for such eventualities his entire life? Hasn't he hurt himself terribly before?
So why does it hurt so badly now? He asks himself, frustrated, pain-addled.
There is a muted sound; a clicking of metal followed by what he thinks could be footsteps, although they are very soft and light-footed. They approach steadily and stop at his side. The unmistakable feeling of someone standing close prompts him to try to move, to speak, make inquiries-
-but all that emerges is an alarming croak, reminiscent of the klauga that used to infest the Hyluan marshes. Now a little frightened-why can't I talk?-and anxious he tries again, fails again.
"Please, don't strain yourself. I understand that you are suffering." The voice is comforting. "I am here to help."
Bracing for the administration of another stim, he is surprised when the person merely places cool, gloved hands on his chest. Despite the obvious care taken not to aggravate his injured skin, the press of the gloves feels grating and it hurts, but not so badly as the needle of a stim injector.
Too self-involved with his pain to wonder what the medic is doing, he is further surprised to feel the Force flood his body, returning unexpectedly with an overwhelming suddenness. It feels like he's just popped his ears. The barrier falls-and he makes no attempt to recreate it. As it washes over him the Force dissolves the brunt of the terrible burning and pain.
He can't reject it this time, can't turn away.
He cries out and wants to weep. The energy is so clear, so pure that he can hardly bear it but is desperate for more. Impatient, he greedily responds, reaching for the Force. Now tears sting in his eyes shamefully. His gratitude is as great as the relief.
It doesn't entirely eradicate the pain, but whatever the medic-healer he thinks-is doing has stripped the agony of its teeth. It's not threatening to drive him insane anymore. Not with the Force to counter and distract, no longer mirroring it back to him.
This time, when he is caught by the neep to sleep, he doesn't fight it. Instead of running from the Force, he embraces it, already forgetting the stranger who has created this small miracle. He's focussed on the wonderful healing that knits together burnt, torn and swollen tissue and skin, on the regeneration working its diligent way through his body. The Force is there, soothing him, almost like a child's lullaby as he drifts away.
He vaguely thinks of his mother, and misses her and hopes she will be waiting in his dreams, whole and healthy and happy again.
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When he dreams again, it isn't his mother that waits for him.
"It's in there, and you can feel it for yourself now…"
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Later, when he is again briefly conscious and is given water and another shot of stims and med-packs, he senses the Force as he wakes. It greets him, flows through him. But when he tries to open his eyes, they open to small cracks. There is nothing but blurred darkness and a dim shadow. His skin still feels raw, burned, but the cold slime smeared all over it has dulled the pain until now it's bearable. The terrible pain of his side has also been muted from lancing agony to an uncomfortable ache with each breath.
Through the cloudy stims he can sense that the Force eddies about him, its presence comforting and growing familiar. Too weak to affect it, he's surprised that it is being channelled through him, healing and cleansing and revitalising as it threads its way through his damaged body. He realises that the Force is responsible for repairing the worst of the damage caused by the dark Jedi. He briefly reaches out to express his gratitude and a calm presence reaches back.
He recoils in surprise, both through the Force and with his body.
There is someone seated at his bedside, a blur of light and shade, a composed stranger who can direct and control the Force. Instinctively, he senses he doesn't know this person. When he finally rouses his mistrust, it is extinguished.
Feelings, not really words, are directed towards him.
Compassion and empathy, encouragement and revitalisation…all inspire sickening gratitude and win his immediate trust in a heartbeat. He can hardly find the necessary ill-will to be resentful or disgusted with himself.
"I'm here to heal you," states a quiet, well-spoken male voice. He recognises it as the same belonging to the healer. Core accent, he realises. Any other tone or inflection and the speaker would probably sound pompous. "Although it seems your body has responded well to the treatment so far. An unexpected but excellent sign. Your recovery should not take long at all."
The Force cradles him as he slips into the darkness this time. He's certain the man is responsible for his recovery.
Davrel hazards who the visitor is before dissolving into the comforting and healing unconsciousness sneaking up on him.
A Jedi.
A/N- Thanks again for the reviews! Sorry for taking so fricking long in updating but my computer went and died on me. Hopefully I can get most of my updates posted regularly from now on.