So a Jedi and a Doctor Walk into a Cantina

4 ABY

Tatooine

Mos Eisley

Luke really shouldn't have come back.

There certainly weren't any good reasons to be doing so. Not when there was still Hutts to trounce and a smuggler in imminent need of being saved. And especially not when you consider what had happened the last time he ventured through here.

Chalmun's Cantina wasn't exactly flush with happy memories. Even back in the days when Biggs and company were set on a night of debauchery Luke would still find himself stumbling back out with one bruise too many.

And yet, here he was all the same. Wizened and tired and in desperate need of a pint of Jawa Juice.

Every step into the establishment was baked in a familiar ambiance. Dim lights only accentuated the strange sights staring back at him from every corner booth. There was the same stringent 'no droid' policy, the bouncy jazz music, the copious amounts of booze and two-headed, four-armed uglies that measured their worth in bar fights and death sentences.

It was almost like he had never left.

In fact, if he was being honest with himself, the only thing that seemed to have changed in the last four years was him. Gone was his poncho and moisture chaps. No more were the long blonde locks and youthful blue eyes. Now he garbed himself in dark robes, wore a sullen expression that was all too-familiar with the horrors the Empire's iron fist was ridding against the rest of the galaxy.

The change in demeanor hadn't gone without notice. No sooner had he taken a seat at the counter did the apron-clad barkeep squint his eyes in dismay. "... Luke? Luke Skywalker?"

Well, that was unfortunate. Hard to count on the owner still recognizing your face some four years after the fact.

"Greetings," Luke offered with a small dip of his head. "I don't believe we've had the pleasure of meeting."

"Maybe not all nice and delicate like, no," the bartender conceded, sweaty fists tightening around the glass he was polishing. "We sure as hell know of each other, though. Hard to forget the trigger-happy that treated my establishment like his own personal shooting gallery."

Luke brought gloved hands to rest atop the counter. A small show of peace. "If you'll remember, I never raised a hand in defiance while I was here."

"Nah, you and your old man rather slice and dice, right? Wave your laser swords around like this place was the set of some holo flick."

Oh, right. That.

He had remembered Han's run-in with the bounty hunter perfectly fine, the imperials that had ran them all out of here, even the precious landspeeder he had to sell just to make ends for his ticket off this rock. Conveniently enough, the one event Luke had blocked from his memory was the bar fight that had spurred it all on to begin with. Perhaps he had gotten into enough scraps at this point that he was just having a hard time keeping track.

"I've... come to learn a lot from my past here," he decided after a considerably thoughtful pause. "Both good and bad."

"Yeah? Here's hoping you took the right lessons away," the bartender offered in mock sincerity. Even still, he had to admit that hard feelings didn't go as far as paying customers did. Despite his better judgement the man could only shake his head and plop a glass down on the table. "What'll it be then, Mr. Skywalker?"

That sent Luke's eyes glossing over the selection of wares, bottles of all shapes and sizes gleaming beneath the auxiliary lights. "You guys still have Jawa Juice, right?"

"Going up in the galaxy, I see. Took you for one of those blue milk sipping mynocks."

"Different tastes for different days," he conceded with a grin. "'Sides, blue milk doesn't taste the same if it's not coming straight from the udder."

"Ugh, right..." the bartender murmured back, filling the glass with a squirt of purple fizz.

Luke took a grateful sip under the bartender's watchful eyes. Evidently, the man had no intentions of letting him out of his sight this time. He placed the glass back down on the table carefully. "Doesn't seem like much has changed around here since I've been gone."

"Not nearly enough," the bartender agreed. "Routine life starts to get unsettling after awhile."

Routine. Now there was something he could use a bit more of. "Same regulars, I take it?"

"Always the same."

Downing the rest of his drink, he couldn't help but chuckle. "I don't suppose that means anyone here still remembers who I am?"

The bartender grit his teeth. "Everyone."

"E- Everyone?"

"Everyone," the bartender repeated, face growing all the more stern. "You caused quite the stir back in the day, kid. Scraps and barfights aren't uncommon here, but what your old man did to poor Ponda... well, it didn't set right. A lot of folks here liked Ponda. Unless something changes here real quick, that means most folk don't care much for you."

All at once the eyes peering up at him from every alcove began to make more sense. "Maybe coming back here wasn't such a good idea..."

"Heh, try telling that to him," the bartender said with a nod to the doorway. Stumbling down the steps was a mottled mess of a man. His face was withered and torn and oh-so familiar. It wasn't Ponda, but his accomplice. And he was every bit as prone to violence and knocking farmboys into bar tables as Luke remembered.

"Evening, Evazan. The usual, I take it?"

"You know me too well," he sputtered back with a laugh.

Luke could feel himself stiffen as the man took a seat next to him, kept his gaze pinned straight ahead. For a Jedi who had taken on dark lords and walkers the size of mountains there was still something to be said about the thug who claimed to have the death sentence on twelve star systems.

An awkward lull between drink request and delivery prompted Evazan to turn his way, words slurring as he spoke. "You... smell funny."

"Do I?" Luke asked, half-tempted to conclude the man just didn't know what a proper bath smelled like.

"Yeah, yeah, real familiar-like. Have we met before?"

"Uhm, not that I can remember..."

But Evazan had already made his mind up, nodded back at the bartender. "What do you make of it, Wuher? I know this guy?"

"It's possible," the man admitted with an unconvincing scratch of his whiskers. "Kid used to come through here back in the day."

"Did you now?" Evazan considered through ceramic teeth. "Have some fun with all the other rocket jockeys and farmboys?"

"Yeah, something like that..."

"That's good, that's good," Evazan concluded with a swig of his whiskey. "It's good to have you back on the dunes, boyo."

Before Luke knew what was happening the man had slapped a well-meaning arm around his shoulder. Aimed for the shoulder, anyways. He ended up much closer to his waist, right around where a certain laser emitter was hiding. Luke shrugged him off before he could familiarize himself with the sword's hilt.

"Boy, you must be packing some serious heat there. Careful with this one, Wuher. Wouldn't wanna get stabbed in the back."

"No," Luke concluded softly before the bartender could say anything. "He wouldn't."

Evazan continued eyeing him curiously throughout another slurp of his mug, waited before Wuher turned back around before asking his follow-up question. "So whatcha carrying there, then?

"Just the standard," Luke insisted. "Enough to protect myself with."

"Come on kid, that ain't no holdout pistol. You're carrying around some real military-grade stuff."

"Not military-level, no. Not what the military uses these days, anyways."

"I had half the mind to ask you if you were an Imperial agent, you know," Evazan noted with a glance over his figure. "Certainly wearing the garb of one."

"You'll find that I'm no friend of the Empire."

"Haha! I'll drink to that," the man cheered, downing the last of his glass. "Gotta tell you though, it's a bit of a relief seeing an old face here again. Even if it's one I don't exactly remember real clear like."

Luke could feel a touch of concern nagging at him now. "Your memory... is it failing you?"

"Not my memory, nah," he wheezed, waving at the bartender for another round. "Everything else sure is, though. Family, health, work. Hell, my clinic's barely standing at this point."

"Clinic?" Luke repeated, eyes drifting back over the scrubs the man had clad himself in. "Hold on, you're a doctor?"

"Damn right I am," Evazan beamed. "Just got off working the night shift. Always get a couple drips of Parkellan Sling to take the edge off."

"Aren't you the guy that's supposed to have the death sentence on twelve systems?"

"Well, I never said I was the good doctor, yeah?" he answered with a hearty laugh and another swig of his drink. "How'd you hear about all that anyways?"

"The... grapevine." Still, Luke couldn't help the fact that curiosity was overcoming reason and the impending chance of a barfight. "What do you specialize in then, Evazan?"

"Prosthetics. Bio-mechanics, really, but with as many people that lose their arms around here, they're about one and the same business-wise for me."

"Prosthetics, huh?" Luke repeated again, all-too familiar with the pain of an amputation. Even still, he was trying to make sense of the revelation. "What was it that got you started down that path?"

"Lots of things, really. Like I said, as many people lose their limbs around here there's good money in trying to give them back. Really though, it was my friend Ponda that got me where I am. He, uh... blamed me for starting a fight that costed him his arm."

That fight was one Luke had done his best to try and forget. "I'm sorry to hear that, Evazan. Truly."

"Don't be. I got that bastard back up and working and all he's ever done since is double-cross me."

"That's unfortunate to hear. Our friends often have a way of disappointing us when they're angry."

"Was it one of your friends who gave you yours, then?" Evazan asked with a nod down to his gloved mechno-arm.

"How did you- is the glove really not that convincing?" Luke asked, finally removing his gauntlet and revealing the metallic sheen of his appendage.

"Don't take it personal," the man chuckled. "I've seen enough of these things to know on instinct when somebody's got one they're trying to hide... And something definitely ain't right about yours."

That prompted Luke to regard his hand again for a moment. "Well, now that you mention it, I've been having problems with one of the servos on the index finger... It keeps jamming up on me."

The technicians back in the Alliance were a makeshift crew, their inexperience tended to shine through on the more intricate operations.

"How's about letting me take a look at it?" Evazan asked with a gleam.

"I really don't think that's such a-" but before Luke could finish his arm was being thrust onto the countertop. "Hey!"

Any further protests were silenced as Evazan went pulling back the maintenance switch around his wrist. He poked at the gizmos experimentally. "Well, one of these conduits has definitely been fried. You've been putting this arm through its paces."

Luke grinned despite himself. "I certainly try to keep busy."

The man offered a tut of dissatisfaction as he pried around at the wires. "Mind if I ask how you got it?

"I do, actually," Luke admitted, half-tempted to pull his arm away. The details surrounding his 'father' were still taking some getting used to. "Bit of a... touchy subject."

"Heh, 'touch'," Evazan murmured as he finally re-closed the maintenance latch with a click. "Give that a whirl now."

Try as Luke might, there was no hiding his amazement at the mechanically-sound flex of his index finger. "You... fixed it!"

"They don't call me Doctor Death Sentence for nothing."

"Right... Thanks, Doctor."

"Anytime, tell your friends," Evazan said with a beam. Before long though his expression had hardened in booze-fueled contemplation. "You wanna know something crazy, kid? When I left this place for the first time I really thought there was nothing left for me."

"Was this... before or after the death sentences?"

"Oh, long before all that. I had gotten into enough trouble offworld that I never even considered coming back here."

"Believe me, you're not the only one to ever feel that way about Tatooine..."

"No, I suppose I'm not," he conceded with a gaze towards the cantina band. "Follies of our youth, huh? Always trying to run from where we've been."

"Rarely does avoiding your past end well," Luke mused with a shake of his head. "It's got this funny way of catching up to you."

"I'll drink to that," Evazan said with an act to confirm his words. "Hows about I buy us both another round?"

For the briefest of moments, Luke entertained the offer. Pictured a reality where he regaled Evazan with tall tales of his time in the rebellion over copious amounts of Jawa Juice. But then he shook his head. "That's alright. I've actually got a friend that's in a spot of trouble with the Hutts right now. Just stopped by for a drink."

There was no hiding the doctor's disappointment. "Well kid, you take care of yourself out there. The Hutts ain't nothing to mess with."

"You do the same, Evazan... And may the Force be with you."

"The... what now?"

But Luke had already disappeared through the doorway. It was time to rescue another old friend he had made in the Cantina all those years ago.

End