Hooray! Woohoo! I did it! I managed to finish this chapter. Ladies and Gentlemen, presenting you chapter 8. Please read and review. This will be the last chapter of the year. (If you want to know why read the author's note in chapter 7.) Fera not, the story will continue next year. Merry Christmas everyone and a have a Happy New Year!

Disclaimer: STAR WARS belongs to the brilliant George Lucas and Lucasfilm Ltd.. Any characters you have never heard of in the movies or books are mine. Merry Christmas Mr. Lucas!

P.S. Disclaimer for the pirate song in the last chapter(Chap 7). That song is not mine. It belongs to whoever wrote it or owns it...I have no idea who but it is not mine.

CHAPTER 8
Hangover

Brilliant white light seared his eyes so he quickly closed them again. With his eyes still tightly shut he reached out with his senses and with the Force, trying to figure out where he was. One thing was clear; he was not in his bedroom.

The room he was in was small and narrow, even smaller than his bedroom. It was quiet, very quiet except for the occasional hum of low voices. He was warm and lying on a soft mattress, softer than his sleepcouch. The smell of disinfectant hung in the air.

Brilliant, Jeran Vàner thought. I'm in the Healers' Wing. Again. Then as his the rest of his body woke up and his mind started absorbing all stimuli he wished he was still asleep.

His heading was exploding. Or felt like it. It was as though a dozen banthas were squashed in his skull and every single one of them was dancing the Corellian Jig.

Then hum of voices suddenly seemed magnified by tenfold and he could even hear the blood pounding in his ears. And worse, with each pound he felt like his skull was on fire.

Was he dying?

He remembered falling. And flying. Not on any vehicle but on his own, as though he had sprouted invisible wings. He thought back further. Staggering down the corridor, lost, talking to a voice in his head. You're drunk, it had said. Laughing, joking, singing with Salis and Arianne.

He gritted his teeth and opened his eyes. Slowly, very slowly, he pushed himself up into a sitting position. Every move made the pain worse. He needed aspirins or painkillers or a very, very strong black tea. Or even better, all three.

The door banged open and in Jeran's poor hung-over mind, it was as though something had just exploded in the tiny cubicle he was in.

"Hello there Jeran, I see you are awake at last." Jeran dove back into bed and covered his head with the pillow, hoping to block out the voice.

The voice continued mercilessly, growing louder and louder as though the speaker was deliberately tormenting him. Belatedly, Jeran recognized that voice. He lifted on end of the pillow. "Go away, Vigil," he whispered hoarsely.

"Why should I?" laughed the Healer. "Besides, I thought you might need these."

A hand appeared in Jeran's line of vision, holding three oval things. He squinted and those things revolved into pills. He reached out blindly groping for them, but the hand closed over them and slipped out of view.

"Uh-uh, you've got to get up to have them."

"To the blazes with you, Maeru Virgil," he growled, sitting up and forcing the sudden stab of pain to the back of his mind. He snatched up the pills and the glass of water the Healer was holding, gulped them down and buried his head under the pillow again.

The pillow was immediately snatched away by the Healer. "You're supposed to wake up." Jeran winced as without the protection of the pillow, Vigil's voice pierced his mind like red-hot nails.

He shook his head then stopped, because the banthas in his head where sliding about, making the pain worse than ever. If only the painkillers would start working. "No," he whispered.

The Healer shrugged. "Very well than." He proceeded to tidy up the bedside cabinet as loudly as possible, slamming the drawers and setting the water jug with a louder than necessary thud. Finally Jeran couldn't take it anymore.

"Fine, fine," he grumbled, "I'll get up."

He sat up slowly. "Why am I here?" He certainly was not here because of the hangover, that much he was sure of.

"Concussion," said the Healer. He handed Jeran a toothbrush and a wash cloth. "Here, clean up."

"What concussion?" asked Jeran, bewildered. "How?"

Vigil shrugged. "How should I know? All I heard was that this Initiate ran in here at one in the morning yelling that there was a dead Knight on the stairs…Not very dead, huh?" he said as he watched the Knight stagger of to the refresher.

"No," muttered Jeran. That explained all those flying and falling sensations. "Not dead yet."

"You have a visitor," Vigil announced as Jeran came out of the 'fresher. "She's waiting in your room."

Jeran nodded wearily as he shuffled back. The pain in his head had abated somewhat; the painkillers were doing their work. His visitor was probably Arianne eagerly waiting to pounce onto him so that she could find some good reason to push a Padawan on him again. "But Jeran, the responsibility would stop you from drinking so much!" Ha, ha. He hardly drank anyway. Besides, she had forced him to go.

He pushed open the door. Instead of his tall black haired friend, a short, red-haired Initiate jump up from the visitors' chair and gazed worriedly at him. "Are you alright?" she asked before he could say anything.

Nodding, he sat down on the bed and invited her sit back down. "What are you doing here?" he asked bleakly.

Perched at the edge of her seat Maia Vestarii looked up at him with large brown eyes. "I found you."

"Huh?"

"I found you. Since you weren't by the training halls and practicing alone is boring, I walked around and when I was going down some stairs I found lying at the bottom." Excitement shone in her eyes as her imagination went to work. "What happened? Were you attacked? Were you poisoned? Drugged? Did someone try to kill you?"

Jeran groaned. Such imagination. On the other hand, something like that sounded much more heroic and dramatic than being drunk and falling. But Jedi did not strive to be heroes. "I was drunk and I fell," he told her truthfully.

"Is that why you didn't come to the training halls?"

"Yes. I was meeting an old friend, one I haven't met in quite a while."

"Oh, I-"

"Hi Jeran, how are you?" someone interrupted. They both jumped in surprise and looked up. It was Arianne. A tired looking Salis was slumped against the doorframe behind her. Her gaze travelled from Jeran to the small girl across from him. "Hi there," she said to Maia, giving here a tired but friendly smile. "Sorry for interrupting you but I didn't know anyone else was in here."

Maia gave her a small smile as she got to her feet. "It's okay; I've got to go anyway, my classes are starting soon." She smiled at Jeran and gave him a quick wave of her hand. "Bye Jeran. See you!"

"You scared her away," Jeran remarked dryly to Arianne as the girl disappeared around the door.

"I'm sorry; I didn't know she was here. Who is she anyway?"

"Maia," said Jeran shortly as he watched Salis collapse into the chair Maia had just vacated. "She found me."

"She what?"

"She found me. I fell down some stairs after I left. K.O."

Arianne gasped and put a hand to her mouth. "Are you alright? Did you break anything?"

"No, I'm fine except for a concussion and a hangover." He turned to Salis. "'Just drink, don't feel sorry…' What the blazes possessed you to sing such rubbish?"

His friend gazed at him blearily through red-rimmed eyes. "I did? I did? I can't remember."

"You did."

"Oh."

"When will you be discharged, Jeran?" Arianne asked.

He shrugged. "No idea. Soon I hope."

"When you are just comm us, okay? Sal and I have to get back and… recover."

Jeran nodded. "Okay, have fun."

Salis staggered to his feet. "Have fun? Ha, ha, I feel sick. You're lucky I didn't puke on you. And with dear Ari here dragging poor me around…" He slowly shook his head and staggered out.

"If all I have is a concussion why do you have to take my temperature?" Jeran mouthed past the thermometer.

"Necessary precautions, Sir," the trainee Healer mumbled.

Jeran harrumphed and nearly dropped the thermometer. "You're fine," the trainee muttered as he read the temperature. He didn't look to happy about it.

"Good," said Jeran, pulling on his cloak. "I guess can go now."

"But Sir, I still have to take a sample of blood for a blood test."

Jeran glowered at him. "You don't need that. All I have –had- was a concussion, for Force's sake. If you really need a blood sample tell Healer Vigil to comm me."

"Yessir."

Went the Knight had left, the trainee Healer went immediately to a small storage room at the back of the Wing. "He just left," he announced sourly to the group of other trainees that crowded the cramped room.

A Mon Calamari trainee punched the air in victory. "I win," she cried. "Cough up everyone."

Grumbling, the others reached into their pockets for credits.

"Couldn't you have delayed him?" someone yelled at the boy who had brought the news.

"You should have poisoned him!" another joked.

In a corner two other trainees were quarrelling. "I'm never listening to you again!" one of them cried. "Your prediction was way of target!"

When they had all calmed down a Rodian stood up and yelled to the room at large, "When do you think Knight Vàner will be back?"

"Tomorrow!" Someone shouted.

"Next week!"

"In a fortnight!"

"The Council grounded him," said a pale skinned Twi'lek girl from a corner of the room. "He'll probably only be back in a month or so."

There you are. Chapter 7! See you next year. Wishing all my readers Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. BTW, please review.

Xrai