The further they stumbled through the station's endless halls, the more Horatio's muscles began to seize and contract, belatedly protesting the lengthy agony they'd endured at Azira's hands. Every part of his body was smoldering, painfully building into a blazing inferno he could hardly tolerate. Wil was nearly bearing the entirety of his weight across his shoulders and his hip, but the young man was slowing, too. Unwilling to cause him further pain, Horatio stopped, somehow managing to lean himself back from Wil's hold to the wall behind them. Wil wasn't prepared for it, turning to desperately grasp at Horatio's jacket and plead with him as he helplessly sank to the floor.
"Dad! Dad, come on, we're almost there... We're so close to the hangar, just a little further. Don't give up now." Bex rolled up beside Wil as he knelt in front of Horatio and gripped his shoulders to keep him upright, but all Horatio could see were his son's hazel eyes, almost exact mirrors of his own. Such compassion and care were so readily shining from them, the same earnest concern the boy's late mother had gazed at him with for weeks before he'd left her, and he found himself rendered breathless the longer he stared. His guilt hadn't affected him nearly enough back then to have kept him at her side, but now, with his son begging him to keep going when he couldn't...it was close to crushing him.
"...you shouldn't have come back for me."
Wil's brows knit even more tightly together with worry. "What? Why wouldn't I?"
Horatio's strength had left him; his body was forfeiting, too. "I don't deserve it," he breathed. "...I hurt you."
Understanding slowly rolled across Wil's face as he recognized his father's distress, tender pity eventually giving way to a fierce determination. Wil set his jaw, drawing in a controlled breath before he gathered the courage to respond.
"Listen," he began pointedly, tightening his grip at his father's shoulders for emphasis. "Yes...what you did hurt me. A lot. I was...confused, and angry, for months. I didn't want to believe that you were capable of casting me aside so easily. That you cared more about the family you planned, the family you wanted...than me, the one you didn't. But the more I thought about it, the more I began to understand...you were trying to protect us. The less I knew, the safer I would be, in case something exactly like this happened. If I didn't know where you were, then I would be useless to anyone trying to find you.
"So...I let go of the anger, and the hurt, and I focused on what I could do to help instead. I tried to find Max for you, I just didn't know he had already found me." He paused briefly, meeting Horatio's gaze once more. "I know how important family is to you. That's why I realized that you wouldn't have hurt me for no reason, without a larger concern. You are still my father...and I still love you. You apologized, and I believe you. I forgive you. So you need to forgive yourself. You have to. We...we are so much better together, as a team, than we are apart. You need me, just as much as I need you...especially now."
Moved with deep emotion, Horatio could hardly see through tear-filled eyes. His entire body shook with trembling spasms, a rightful penance for the horrible pain he'd caused his son. He'd never felt more unworthy of the forgiveness Wil so readily gave him, and he could only shake his head in return. "You don't need me..."
Emotional himself, Wil responded with a noticeable strain in his voice. "Yes, I do... I need your help, and you're the only one I'll allow to give it."
Horatio let his head fall to his shoulder, no longer willing to hold his son's gaze. But undaunted, Wil continued.
"I need your help...so I can be a good father, too."
Unsure if he had heard Wil correctly, Horatio slowly turned his eyes back up to him. "...what?"
Wil let go of a tense breath that gave way to a weak smile, his shoulders sagging as though they'd just lost a tremendous burden they'd been holding. "My girlfriend, Embrey... She's...well, she's due in a few months. Twin girls."
Horatio could only stare in disbelief. So much had transpired in Wil's life over just a short six months...and Horatio knew almost nothing of it.
"I want you to be there," Wil continued to plead, "when they're born. As they're growing up. I want you, and Liaa and Jewel, to be there with us. Please, Dad... Let me save you."
The shock of Wil's news still hadn't entirely registered yet, but Horatio knew at the very least, he owed his son a response. He lifted a trembling hand up to Wil's shoulder, gripping it with the meager strength he could muster, before reaching further behind Wil's neck for the leverage to get back up onto his feet. Wil obliged and lifted him the rest of the way, bracing the elder Sheridan with an arm around his back. Satisfied that Horatio would be able to continue, Wil looked to Bex.
"Is our path to the hangar still clear, buddy?"
The orange astromech chirped and whistled a lengthy response, and Horatio struggled to translate in his haze. "He said there's...a lot of chatter. They know we've locked them out. We have to hurry."
With renewed energy, Wil sped up his pace, practically dragging Horatio alongside him. Horatio managed a few weak, stumbling steps, unable to force his legs to work as they should, but Wil pushed them both ahead without pause. The sharp sting of electricity and the smell of burned flesh in the air intensified the closer they drew to the hangar, heightening Horatio's anxiety; was Azira going to be waiting for them once they made it there?
Turning down another hall, they found one last blast door separating them from their awaiting escape. Bex rolled ahead of them and plugged into an access panel just beside it, beeping his findings.
"Just open the door, Bex!"
Bex complied with a short spurt and released from the panel as the door began to slowly open, putting away his scomp link in exchange for a charged shock arm. At least one of the three could defend themselves.
As they stole their way across the nearly vacant hangar, towards the familiar Shadow Nova sitting exactly where the original four visitors had left it, Horatio began to notice just how...empty the hangar had become since he'd last been through. Where had all the cargo crates gone?
Wil seemed to read his mind with ease. "Bex's handiwork. He tossed them all out of the containment shield into space. They've probably made some nice craters on Rishi's surface by now."
"Wish I could have seen it."
Before Wil could respond, a sizable explosion from the hangar's opposite entrance immediately earned their attention. The smoke had hardly cleared from the decimated door when a strange blaster shot rang out, a specific sound Horatio had heard only once before, and it was headed straight for them.
Instinct took over without any thought; Horatio suddenly discovered strength he had thought long gone as he brought his hand up from his side and found Wil's chest, shoving him away, hard, to save him from the blast. The charge exploded just a meter from Horatio's side, sending him into the air and to the durasteel floor with obliterated senses. Every function of his body had stopped, even his heart, as he suffered, but he had to know if Wil had been spared. As he lifted his head, his stunned lungs finally opened again, allowing him to desperately gasp as his heart restarted a frantic pattern. His vision was blurred by the hard blow his head had taken against the floor, but from his position on his side, he could see he'd landed close to the Shadow Nova, and one lone figure floated down the extended loading ramp...
"Azira!" Mand's voice called to their enemy across the hangar. Mand's hand was extended toward them, but her entire body trembled as she stood, as though she hadn't the stamina to remain there for very long at all.
"You fire that weapon again," Mand continued intensely, "...I will block the charge before it leaves the barrel."
The fall of more than a dozen footsteps slowed to a halt at a generous distance, and Horatio heard a familiar, icy laugh echo about the cavernous hangar.
"You don't have the strength..."
Horatio would have thought the same of his former partner, as much as she wavered in place. Whatever torture he had endured from Azira, Mand's must have been increased tenfold to have weakened her so; he knew what horrors she had endured in the past, and what she had already endured on this mangled mission before they'd found themselves at Azira's mercy. Willing himself to his feet by sheer determination, he looked around for his son, feeling his heart stop again as he saw Wil crumpled on his side just before the loading ramp. The young man's face was twisted in agony as he clutched his chest, breathing in short spurts as his tooka Phantom paced in front of him, growling at Azira, but at least he was alive, for now.
Azira had a handful of her men around her, all armed with her modified blaster, intent on keeping Horatio from attending to his son. She sneered at him, daring him to make his move, but Mand instead earned her attention once more.
"And you don't have the courage to test me."
Azira's eyes narrowed in response as she appeared to weigh her options. She knew full well just how capable of a fighter Mand could be, but the Jedi Master had been so severely weakened, Horatio knew that even a crude blaster could defeat her at this moment. If Azira was brave enough to call Mand's bluff...none of them were leaving the station alive.
"Maybe I don't," Azira ceded, hoisting her blaster onto her shoulder with ease as she took a few cautious steps back. "But they do. They'll do whatever I tell them to."
Her guards all readied and aimed their blasters at Mand, emboldened by the odds that would be in their favor. Mand raised her other hand before her, as well, beads of sweat mixing with dried blood on her forehead as she surveyed the hostile group. She remained resolute, though, maintaining her stance despite her serious fatigue.
"We are leaving," she told them in an even tone. "Max, take Wil into the ship."
Trusting Mand's ability to protect them, Max quickly swept out to Wil's side, picking him up under his arms and carefully dragging him up the ramp as Phantom followed closely. Azira and her men stood idle, although at great offense to the old Huxnel admiral who had taken aim once Max and Wil disappeared. With his son safely inside and their situation becoming more dire, Horatio had to intervene somehow.
"Azira, let them go," he bargained. "You can keep me - "
"Horatio," Mand interrupted him. "Don't - "
"You've wanted me all these years - "
"Horatio, get inside the ship. I won't tell you again."
Azira's eyes narrowed at Horatio. "You cost me my life's work, twice. For that, I'll take your entire family. And I'll start with these three here." She addressed her men without hesitation. "Destroy the ship."
They all took aim at Mand first, though, and Horatio could only watch with horror as she closed her eyes in response. She took in and released a slow breath, drawing out the tense moments as she seemed to prepare herself for the oncoming assault...
...and without warning, her eyes shot wide open as a raging fury blazed within them. Her hands, still extended in front of her, suddenly clenched into tight fists, and each of the blaster barrels facing her instantly deformed and snapped, rendering them useless. She swept her arms to the side, and the Force ripped each blaster from the confused hands that held them, scattering them a dozen meters away. Within the span of an eternal, unbelievable second, their situation had completely reversed and they were free -
- until Horatio heard another blast, and again, the galaxy stood still.
He had no chance of evading it a second time. He hadn't even thought to move, staring blankly as the charge accelerated on its way to him, for him, from another blaster Azira had hidden and fired. Something suddenly gripped him around his stomach and yanked him into the air, but...the charge hadn't yet detonated. He saw Mand's arms flow the same direction, sending him backwards into the ship, and just a moment later she swung one hand up, protecting herself from the charge...but she hadn't been fast enough.
Horatio landed against and slid up the ramp from her powerful Force throw, again watching a horror unfold. Mand's body absorbed the blast full on, slamming her to the durasteel without mercy. The Shadow Nova roared to life an instant later, lifting off from the station's hangar as Horatio pulled himself from his stupor and brought Mand further inside the ship. A number of new explosions rang out, although they rumbled and echoed about from the other side of the hangar. The ship's ramp lifted and sealed as the explosions neared and exponentially intensified, and as rapidly as it had all happened, it was suddenly silent when the Shadow Nova made the jump to hyperspace, leaving the nightmare of the Rishi station far behind.
Looking down at his former partner as the shock again wore off, Horatio stared in terror. The blast she had taken had torn a large, gaping hole in her chest, nearly exposing her heart. Again acting on reflex, he reached into the storage cabinets in the rear hold, rummaging through its contents in a panic. He found a lone canister of bacta and returned to her, his hands shaking horribly as he poured the healing liquid and held a cloth over her wound. Her gaze was fixed straight up at the ceiling, but he reassured her, anyway.
"You're gonna be okay, Kil. You'll be okay. I promise."
"Dad..."
Still clutching his chest, Wil had knelt beside him without his knowledge. He gripped Mand's limp, motionless wrist briefly before he returned to his father, breathless with grief. "Dad...she's gone."
Horatio stared at Wil, reality no longer registering. "But...we just need more bacta...more time..."
Wil shook his head with sorrow. "Dad..."
Looking back down at her as Wil delicately closed her eyes with his fingers, Horatio couldn't breathe. It wasn't real, was it? None of that had actually happened...it couldn't have. He was the one who'd been killed, and he was living hell.
"It was supposed to be me," Horatio mouthed, no strength behind his words as he sat back from her in complete defeat. "It was meant for me... It's my fault. It was supposed to be me."
He shut out all sight, all sound, even his son's gentle reassurances from beside him and Phantom's comforting nudges as the minutes wore on, locked in a surreal haze that wouldn't relinquish its hold on him. He'd known no pain like it before, and he even faintly hoped in his weakened state that it would claim him, too.
He deserved that much.
