Horatio blinked, not entirely uncertain he wasn't just imagining her standing there, as she had yet to say a word or move. He would have expected a flurry of condemnation, berating him for leaving so quickly before he'd had the chance to recover, before he'd said goodbye to Liaa or Wil...but she merely studied him, little to no expression on her face. Did she expect him to collapse? Apologize? Attack her instead?

As a test, he took a few steps closer to her, keeping his expression intense as he held her gaze, but she refused to yield. His anger took over once more at her silence, and with one hand, he reached up and grabbed her shoulder, forcefully shoving her aside as he continued on past her to the rear hatch. The movement severely aggravated his side, but he wouldn't give her the satisfaction of seeing his grimace. She'd have to physically restrain him to keep him from leaving.

"Get the hell off my ship, Kil."

He could hear her footsteps behind him, following him at a patient pace, but it was her calm voice that enraged him further. "It's not your ship. It's Wil's."

"I bought it," he continued with a low tone, turning around to challenge her. "I gave it to him. It's still mine." He couldn't steady his voice for long, though. "He's not using it right now, anyway."

Something akin to pity rolled across her face before she could correct it, forcing him to look away. He remained in a strange state of conflict; he couldn't believe that his son had survived his wounds, wounds that he had seen and felt himself as he cradled Wil in his hold, but neither could he bring himself to accept that he had lost his son, as well. It was too much to handle all at once.

"I made you a promise," Mand continued softly, maintaining her distance. "I told you that I would do everything I could to help you find Jewel. That's why I'm here."

His side throbbed even more the angrier he became. "And I told you to leave."

A tense silence stretched between them, testing Horatio's patience to its limit. She knew better than to provoke him, especially in his foul state, but still she stayed, her voice warm with compassion. "Horatio...you know that you are in no condition to do any of this alone. Your side was ripped open by a detonator blast. You can hardly stand upright. You lost a considerable amount of blood, and I know you've only gotten a small portion of it back. I want nothing more than to help you, but you have to let me."

But he shook his head firmly. "No. This happened because of my failures. This is my family, my wreck that I have to clean up."

"I know you feel that way," she soothed, "but - "

He snapped, leveling his rage at her directly. "You don't know a damn thing about what I feel!"

"I have been in your shoes!" she returned just as fervently, unwilling to back down. "I know exactly where your head is at, because mine was once there, too!"

Refusing to suffer her pitying gaze, he turned and walked away down the corridor, but she followed him and continued with a softer, pleading tone. "Jewel is...quite a bit younger than Cordira was, I will grant you that. But I had another concern to compound everything. Cordira was pregnant when she was taken. Yes, our situations may not be exactly the same, but I know what's going through your mind right now. Let me be the guidance you need - "

"You know nothing about what I need!" he yelled. His entire body shook with fury as he whirled around to face her again, unable to restrain his emotion. "You have no idea what I'm going through! I already told you once to leave my ship, Kil. If I have to tell you again, I'm throwing you out the airlock myself!"

Practically face to face with her, towering over her, he fumed and trembled intensely. He wasn't about to fold and accept her help; he didn't need it, and he couldn't allow himself to be responsible for another person's pain. He'd done enough damage already.

Mand stood her ground, though, motionless as she held his gaze. She seemed to be awaiting...something from him. Another outburst, another ultimatum, or maybe even a physical response from him that she would have to counter. He managed to withhold himself, somehow, despite how desperately he felt like tearing something, anything apart with his bare hands. He had to save that for Jewel's kidnapper.

Her voice, however, remained so exasperatingly placid. "Your anger is not with me, Horatio. You haven't allowed yourself time to work through your grief, through your guilt, so you can't clear your head right now. I know what that suffocating haze feels like. It took me three days before I was ready to leave Paneau after Cordira was taken."

"I'm not you," he seethed, emphasizing every word to distract himself from his intensely aching side. "I don't get to use the Force like a crutch. I don't get to hide behind my lightsaber every time something goes wrong. We are nothing alike."

As if a switch had been flipped, her eyes sharpened as her gaze bored into him. It was her emotional words, though, that cut him to the quick, and he deeply felt every single point she made, much to his dismay.

"I know that strangling guilt...that smothering burden you feel because you know that your past, that your terrible mistakes are the reason that your innocent children are suffering.

"I know that paralyzing helplessness...that agonizing defeat knowing that you completely failed to protect them, to keep any harm from coming to them, even though you thought you'd done everything you could.

"I know that mind-numbing hopelessness...that inescapable, torturous fear that you won't be good enough, strong enough, to rescue them, to save them in time, because you've already failed them once." She paused only briefly to let her words sink in, blinking back faint tears as her voice shook. "Tell me I'm wrong, Horatio. Tell me that you feel none of that...and I will leave."

His legs felt weak underneath him, poised to give way and collapse him at any moment, but he fought through it, fueled by his rage. It infuriated him how right she was, and how aptly she had described everything he was experiencing. He was such a fool for so brazenly denying their similarities when he knew just how closely they were related; he had even been party to Cordira's rescue and recovery himself and had seen firsthand the heartfelt relief Mand experienced. He was beginning to see that he had been blinded and deafened by the onslaught of despair he'd felt since he had held Wil in his arms outside his home, and it aggravated him even more. He couldn't argue with her, but he was so stubbornly determined to prove to her that he was capable of maintaining his composure, that he wasn't suffering severe mental and emotional strain that threatened to fracture his mind, that he was able to mount a rescue attempt entirely on his own...

But his old, wounded body betrayed him. The pain in his side sharpened so suddenly, it stole his breath as he grabbed it and fell to his knees. Mand reacted quickly and reached out to steady him, but he shed her grip as he regained his breath, his pain subsiding the longer he pressed his hand against it. He took a moment more before he responded, making certain that he could put any measurable strength behind his words.

"Fine," he ceded reluctantly, slowly getting back to his feet. "But you had better decide now how you're going to deal with this: when I find the man who took Jewel, who hurt Wil...I will kill him."

Mand met his gaze with a resolute one of her own. "You know I won't let you do that. He will get what he deserves - justice, not revenge."

Drawing himself back up to his full height, he looked down at her, motionless, resolved as he'd never been before. "Don't get in my way, or I won't hesitate to kill you, too."

"Yes, you will."

Her flippant response surprised him, but he couldn't manage a reply before she continued. "You will hesitate. You won't hurt me."

He reacted before he'd even formulated the thought. In an instant, his arms reached up and gripped her at her shoulders, shoving her back against the wall with force as he pressed his forearm against her throat to stun her. "We can test that, right now."

She made no move to defend herself, no reflex to retaliate, and even with a restricted airway, she held his gaze, unwavering.

"...I am not afraid of you."

His voice was as dark and intense as his eyes. "You should be."

A faint blue glow suddenly appearing just beside his face earned his attention, but only after a few moments did he finally turn to look at it. It was a small holo of some kind of craft, being cast into the air by a portable projector Mand held in her hand. He studied it briefly, unfamiliar with its design. "...what is that?"

Her breath caught in her throat, leading him to finally lower his arm from her. She recovered gracefully with only a small gasp, showing no ill will towards him as she answered him calmly. "It's a scan of the ship we think left Dantooine with Jewel. Do you recognize it?"

His hand found his aching side once more, desperate curiosity slowly tempering his fury. "No. Do you?"

Mand shook her head. "No. But I think our first move should be to take it to someone who might."

"Who?"

"Wil's brother, Malin." She focused briefly on something distant. "I think Wil knew who he was following. He knew who was coming for Jewel. He didn't tell us anything in his distress call, but...if there's anyone he did tell, it would be Malin."

With another glance at the holo in Mand's hand, Horatio returned to the cockpit, not waiting for anything further from her as he fired up the engines to leave.

"We're wasting time."


A deep, merciless pain was first to greet him as his consciousness slowly returned to him. Though his mind remained locked in a cloudy haze, Wil could feel his chest protest fiercely with every slow, calculated breath he took. He wasn't sure how he managed it, but a pained groan escaped his lips and thankfully got the attention of someone nearby.

"Wil?"

It was a familiar voice, a comforting sound in his confusion and disorientation, though it wasn't until he opened his eyes and forced them to focus that he was finally able to speak, albeit extremely weakly. "...Master?"

Master Natiyr smiled warmly down at him, relief well evident in his voice as he stood at his side with a hand lightly on his shoulder. "Welcome back, son. We almost lost you." His patched left eye caught Wil's attention even as his clouded right eye seemed to scan over him intently. "How are you feeling?"

The words were difficult to form. "Chest...on fire..."

Master Natiyr nodded sympathetically, gently placing his palm in the center of Wil's chest. "Residual discomfort from your surgery. I'll take care of it."

His mind didn't seem too eager to work, though. "...surgery?"

"Do you remember what happened?"

He managed to shake his head slightly before he realized, or maybe he remembered, that the kind Master Healer could not see. "No."

"We arrived on Dantooine just after you and your father had been attacked by some unknown man. We never saw him, but...he took Jewel. We were hoping you could tell us who he was."

Briefly unsure if he had heard Master Natiyr correctly, Wil closed his eyes tightly, willing something, anything to come to recall. He couldn't even decipher where he was at the moment; his memory was firmly incarcerated and refused to function, and it frustrated him immensely. He had already failed Jewel once, it seemed, and he was continuing to fail her now. Some Ghost Heir he was turning out to be.

Master Natiyr's soft voice brought him back to the present. "Your body is still recovering, Wil; have patience. It'll come back to you. Honestly, I'm amazed that you're even awake right now. You shouldn't have survived that kind of blood loss, either, but...you Sheridans continue to surprise me."

"My dad," Wil managed faintly, seeing brief flashes of his father's pained face hovering over his, "...is he okay?"

Master Natiyr hesitated briefly. "Depends on your definition of 'okay'. He was...quite distraught when he left yesterday, and not completely healed. My wife went with him to help him look for Jewel, so she should be able to keep him...stable. Hopefully."

The whole situation left him feeling...worthless. He hardly had the strength to move, so what good would he be to the search for his missing sister? If only he could remember what happened, remember what he could just almost see in the back of his mind, what was only just beyond his reach...

Irritated at himself, he slowly tracked his gaze away from his friend to the other side of the room, his head falling that same direction. It wasn't long before he noticed a blanket crumpled on a chair just beside him, and it puzzled him. The blanket looked to have been used, wrapped around someone and then carelessly cast aside. He didn't think it had been laid on him, since he was already well covered by one, but rather -

"You've had a vigilant friend at your side," Master Natiyr observed casually, somehow aware of Wil's focus. "She stayed in that chair, never once leaving you after you came out of the bacta tank, until I forced her to go. She needed to get some proper rest, so I sent her to one of the sleeping quarters down the hall."

Returning his gaze to the Jedi Master, Wil remained confused as to whom he was alluding, wracking his frazzled mind over who he could mean, until -

"...Embrey."

Master Natiyr nodded with a comforting smile. "She's okay. I'll make sure she's taken care of, Wil, I promise. And don't worry," he added softly with unexpected warmth, "...your secret's safe with me."

Wil could feel every frantic pulse of his heartbeat against his aching chest wall. Embrey wasn't supposed to be...wherever he was; she was supposed to have stayed on Paneau, out of harm's way and certainly not at his side after he'd barely survived an attack by some unknown assailant. She was...more important to him than he could say...but of course the perceptive Master had discerned why. At least he could trust that she would have a friendly, attentive eye on her, so to speak, when Wil himself couldn't leave his own bed.

Master Natiyr moved his hand to Wil's shoulder once more. "Your recovery should be your only focus right now, Wil. Rest, and your memories will return to you. It's the best thing you can do for Jewel, and for yourself."

Despite wanting to do anything else but, Wil nodded faintly, his eyelids heavily closing. "Thank you, Master."

"Of course. Anything for you Rys'tihns."

Sleep easily descended on him, but he held tightly to thoughts of Embrey's enchanting smile, her dark curly hair, and her pleasant laugh as he drifted.