Horatio swallowed hard and hesitated just a brief moment before he complied with Rech's request, taking great care to lower Mand onto the bed without causing her further injury. It was an absurd gesture, he knew, but the bacta-soaked cloth he'd placed atop her chest completely concealed her grievous wound, making it appear that she was merely asleep. Part of him still believed she was, that she would awake at some point and berate him for his poorly planned attempt to distract Azira while they were about to escape. She would tell him how much of an idiot he was, how she'd had their captors under control just fine, and how he'd completely ruined it by needlessly offering himself as a sacrifice. He could even hear her voice perfectly in his head, a cruel reminder of just how much time they'd spent together over the years. In an oddly nostalgic way, he realized that he would miss her tirades directed at him the most.
The first movement the Jedi Master made was to extend his hand over his wife's body, his fingers noticeably trembling as he held them just above her torso. Did he need the Force to confirm to him that she was indeed gone?
"What...happened..."
Rech's pained question was simple enough, but how was Horatio supposed to answer it? Did Rech want someone to blame? Did he want every detail? Had Mand already told him through the Force, and Horatio's answer was a thinly veiled test?
He stammered, dumbly fumbling for words. "Rech... I... I'm..."
But the Master Healer suddenly erupted with agonized fury, making Horatio visibly flinch. "What happened!"
"Azira fired an explosive charge at us," he answered weakly, swallowing again, "...at me. Mand, she...she pulled me out of the way, so I wouldn't get hurt, and...she took the blast herself." He relived that moment again and again in his mind, his trembling worsening each time he saw the charge detonate before she could protect herself... "I didn't ask her to," he continued with even less strength, looking down at her. "I didn't want her to. It was meant for me... It should've been me."
Though his hand had fallen to find Mand's at her side on the bed, Rech still hadn't moved much from his stance as the silence between them stretched on. Half of his face had been viciously scarred some time ago, leaving him without his left eye and with a clouded, damaged right eye, so he was far more difficult to read than Horatio had anticipated. Despite being mostly sightless, his right eye still scanned over his wife's body with deepening sorrow, yet...he kept himself composed. No further outbursts, no tense movements, nothing. Horatio was on the verge of breaking down completely, his lungs paralyzed with grief and his legs threatening to buckle underneath him, but Mand's husband of more than thirty years remained so calm and controlled as he suffered through the most devastating loss of his life.
"...you're sure you weren't hurt?"
Stunned, Horatio simply stared, certain his fractured mind had fabricated Rech's question entirely. Why would Rech care in the slightest if the man who had gotten his beloved wife killed had sustained any injuries or not? Had his grief already broken him, too?
"You probably don't remember," Rech continued weakly as he stepped around the bed, "...but I've healed you before."
Horatio warily backpedaled as Rech neared, his muscles tensing in anticipation of an attack, either physical or through the Force...but none came. The Master Healer stood in place just a step away from him, his hands relaxed and hanging freely at his sides as he continued. "After the Paneau had extracted you and Mand from that asteroid mine, hypothermic and severely hypoxic...you were at death's door. Though she needed my attention, too, Mand begged me to save you, to heal you instead...and I very nearly refused. I still don't know what went on between you two during those long months that you were gone, but...in that moment, I made the decision to trust her. To believe that she cared for you and trusted you as a friend. So I healed you. If I hadn't...if I had let my jealousy, and anger, and confusion cloud my mind...then we would never have been gifted with your son Wil. Nor would we have gotten my sister Yhren back from the slavers that had taken her on Ord Mantell. Or my daughter Cordira, stolen from us by the maniac who had created her. So much of the past twenty years would have been so different had I hardened my heart against you...but the Force had other plans for you, for all of us.
"I can still feel a slight connection to every being I've ever healed, and that includes you. I can feel that you're in pain. The wound in your side is still mending, and you're concussed." Rech paused a brief moment, his eye slowly closing as he let go of a long breath and reached a hand up to Horatio's shoulder...
...but Horatio stepped back again, turning his shoulder just out of Rech's reach.
Rech's hand hovered in the air between them with all traces of his earlier trembling gone completely; he was seemingly still so intent on helping him. "Horatio...I'm not going to hurt you."
Almost entirely certain that he was hallucinating in his severe distress, Horatio shook his head, pained anger rising within him. "You should. I...I am the reason your wife is dead."
But Rech only answered with gentle compassion. "You're punishing yourself, when you have already suffered so much. Please...let me help you. She would want me to, just like she did all those years ago."
Backpedaling even more away from him, Horatio abruptly turned and left the room, his legs carrying him away faster than he could process. He had no clear direction, only intent on distancing himself as he heard Rech calling for him from down the hall. He turned down corridor after corridor, panic rising as his breathing accelerated and drove him further away. The faces he encountered looked on him with genuine concern, but he avoided them, moving on to the next hallway to find one empty. A small dark room opened to him as he passed it, and seeking its solitude, he stepped inside and sealed its door shut. He hoped no one would follow him.
The darkness inside was only a small comfort, and he fell back against the wall, gripping fistfuls of his own hair as his mind raced wildly out of control. He slid down the wall to the floor in such a panicked state, he was beginning to feel lightheaded, unable to calm himself. His fear and regret wanted him to keep running, to flee and never return, to disappear so no one else would ever get hurt because of him...
Don't leave...
The quiet voice echoed so faintly, almost ethereally within the room, he wasn't sure what he had heard. It was...familiar, warm, full of care, but he was alone, wasn't he?
Releasing his hair from his hands, he slowly looked up to meet his company. Only Wil's pet tooka sat at attention just before him, carefully studying him with her head slightly tilted.
"Phantom..."
How had she gotten into the room? Had she already been in there when he thought he'd found it empty? To his surprise, the small, furry creature had a slight calming effect on him with their gazes locked, as though her mere presence somehow brought him...peace. But surely the tooka wasn't the one who had spoken; who, then, had he heard?
"You should be with Wil," he told her weakly, intending to send her away. "You...you take care of him." But she remained.
Don't leave.
The woman's voice was stronger the second time, and he recognized it right away, though he hadn't heard her in more than twenty-five years. It stole his breath with the realization that its only source, the companion Wil had been given as a gift not long before he and Horatio had met, was a conduit for the spirit of a woman he had loved deeply years ago.
His tears fell freely. "Deilia..."
Phantom bowed her head in silent acknowledgment, waiting a moment more before she slowly stepped toward him and sat closely at his side. She rested her head gently on his thigh, an affectionate gesture the tooka had long been fond of doing.
Don't leave, she repeated a third time. Wil needs you.
"I hurt him," Horatio breathed, his head leaned back against the wall behind him. "I hurt everyone..."
He loves you. Jewel loves you. Don't leave them.
Each new tear burned as they tracked down his face, his anger with himself darkening and sullying his thoughts. "I have to. They deserve better...so much better..."
Then be better. I've always known you could be.
Feeling nothing but unworthy of her assurances, he closed his eyes tightly in an attempt to block her out. She had only known him at his worst, at his absolute lowest; she couldn't possibly have seen anything good in him back then.
A soft, warm touch caressed his cheek, instantly melting tension from his entire body as he longingly turned his head into the sensation. He knew it wasn't real, he knew that she wasn't actually there, but still he foolishly reached up to his face to feel her hand - and his eyes shot open the second his fingers brushed hers. Deilia Rys'tihn, though gone for years, was kneeling just in front of him, faintly glowing in the darkness, and he struggled to breathe. Was she a Force ghost? Or just a projection of his memory of her? Her sandy blonde hair was pulled to one side and cascading over her shoulder, and her calming brown eyes were so deeply locked with his. She wore the most compassionate expression on her face as she gazed at him, even lightly smiling at his dumbfounded reaction. Except for her hair, she looked just as she had the last time he had seen her aboard her ship, leaving her after they'd spent one beautiful, passionate night together...
"I know how much you're hurting," she whispered, brushing her thumb along his cheek to dry it. "I'm so sorry."
"I got Mand killed," he choked, breaking down into tears again. "I almost lost Wil, too. I can't stay..."
"It wasn't your fault..."
Mere moments from giving into his despair completely, he couldn't even find solace in her eyes. "I am...broken..."
Horatio closed his eyes once more as he felt Deilia cup the other side of his face, gently tilting his head down to place a tender kiss on his forehead. He breathed in her familiar smell, Paneau's native panna flowers, amazed that he could even recall the delicate fragrance after so many years away. Her gentle touch again eased his intense turmoil, and though it didn't entirely remedy his heartache, he could at least regain control of himself. His calmed breathing brought back a caring smile to her face as she continued, still stroking his face.
"You have two beautiful children... Let them guide you. Let them mend you. You will be whole again. Take the time you need to recover, if you must, but don't leave them. They need you."
As exhaustion began to overtake him, Deilia's appearance began to fade into the darkness. He studied every facet, every curve of her kind face to commit it to new memory before she disappeared, and he spoke without restraint, afraid he'd never get the chance to tell her again.
"You were the best thing that had ever happened to me...and I left you."
She smiled faintly with understanding. "I knew it would be that way before it even started. Didn't stop me from falling in love with you."
His eyes closed heavily as a lifetime of regret fell upon him. "I wish...I wish you had been here with Wil..."
Her voice was nothing but a whisper once more.
I am always with him...and with you.
The room around him was completely dark again, and reminding him of her presence, Phantom affectionately rubbed her head along his arm to bring him back to the present. He stroked her down her back, earning a series of gentle purrs as they sat together and enjoyed each other's comfort. Deilia's words still rang so strongly in his mind, altering his immediate plans against his will. She was right; he couldn't leave Wil and Jewel, but he was currently in no fit state to be around his children. He needed time to process his loss, and hopefully they would understand that. He wouldn't be gone for long, he silently promised them, and he could only hope that Wil would forgive him a second time.
Awaking with a start, Wil gasped as he desperately reached out into the air.
"Dad!"
He had just seen his father hovering over him, his eyes full of sorrow and regret for a decision he'd made, a promise he'd reminded Wil of. His outstretched hand found nothing, he realized, slowly taking in his new surroundings as he winced and nursed a sore chest again.
"Wil! Take it easy, please! You're just out of surgery!"
Seated just at his right side, Embrey clasped his hand and carefully brought it back down to the bed, watching him with extreme worry as she held tightly to his hand to comfort him. She was the most beautiful thing he'd seen in days, and he was nothing but grateful for her fidelity, but he had to leave her gaze and search the others who were gathered around him. Wyliaa stood just behind her with a gentle hand on Embrey's shoulder and a muted expression on her face, and Thaylan dutifully kept watch at the foot of his bed. To his left were his other covert agents Nevo, Aggas, and Jaka, and in the far corner stood his cousin Max, curious about his condition but wary of the others. All of his expected visitors had kept a faithful vigil beside him as he recovered again...except for one. His father was nowhere to be found, and the realization hit him hard.
"Dad left...didn't he?"
