Much to her surprise, Maria Perna opened the door to Tommy, and not one of his friends.

"I believe my apprentice is with you" Tommy said as soon as the door was opened for him.

"Yes she is, hold on, I'll get her" Maria said as she turned around "Shyma! Your master's here!" she called into the house.

"Coming..." came the put out voice of Shyma from the depths of the house.

"I have a name you know" Tommy said to no one in particular.

"So does Shyma" Maria said suddenly turning back to him "But to you she's just your apprentice so why should you be treated any different?"

Tommy stared at her for a moment. What the heck happened to the respect everyone used to pay to him mere hours ago?!

And just when he was about to retort, he broke off coughing. Once he recovered he looked up and saw Maria looking at him with a concerned expression "Are you ok?"

"I'm fine" he muttered, letting one last cough slip.

At that moment Shyma walked into the room and over to them.

"Right then. Later Master Perna..." Shyma said to the Jedi Master next to her. She then looked up to Tommy with a less than excited expression "We going home or what?"

Tommy shot her a look that said "do I even have to say the word?"

Shyma rolled her eyes "let's go" she mumbled stepping out of the house.

SW

SW ****** SW

SW

Shyma sighed.

A deep meaningful sigh.

Damn was she bored.

After Tommy had picked her up from Master Perna's house he had brought her home (shooting her deadly glares the entire walk...as though she had caused something devastating to happen to him or something like that) and then locked himself in his room. And leaving Shyma to entertain herself for the rest of the evening.

...It wasn't working out too well.

Since she was on 2 weeks leave, she didn't have any homework from classes to finish, or any super important project that she had procrastinated to the last minute to rush on. And it would be incredibly awkward of her to go watch the holo-tv at a time like this.

So there she was sitting in her room. Bored.

Finally she decided to call it a night and flopped down in bed. Not really to fall asleep, just to occupy herself. But eventually dozed off.

And was having a rather blissful sleep.

….That is until the sound of a harsh cough tore her out of it. Shyma jerked awake and looked around for a moment before realizing the sound came from the living room. Shyma rolled her eyes, realizing it was her master having another coughing fit. She let it go and dropped back to bed

But when she heard him again something in the force pulled at her.

Something about his force signature wasn't right.

Shyma pushed herself out of bed and slowly opened the door to her room. And much to her surprise found Tommy on the living room couch.

She walked over and sat on the couch across from him. Tommy was too preoccupied to notice her until she called him.

"Hey, you ok?" Shyma asked simply.

Tommy looked up slowly and as his slightly bloodshot eyes fell on the young girl, something hit him.

He'd been trying to figure out what had triggered this for almost 2 days now. He was aware that it might have been his asthma acting up, but didn't want to show up at the healers until he was absolutely sure. But more important to him than being sure about it, was what had caused it.

And now suddenly...upon seeing his apprentice, it came to him.

"It was you..." he let out in a low raspy growl.

Shyma looked at him with a startled expression. Tommy vaguely wondered if it was from how haggard he probably looked, or how terrifying he sounded.

"You...when we sparred....you struck me in..." Tommy trailed off.

"In the chest..." Shyma whispered. The words had somehow just come to her. And then something else came to her. In fragmented words that somehow made sense. But it didn't matter. They all added up to one thing in her mind: His asthma.

And as soon as that pieced together, Luke's words came to her:

"In reality though Tommy's asthma is worse than most. He has incredibly sensitive lungs. The smallest impact upon them sets him off. It's why he has to have such a high defense…all the time."

Good lord what the hell happened to his defense when he was fighting a 12 year old girl of all the people??!!

"Oh....that's not good...." Shyma muttered to herself. Nevertheless Tommy caught it.

"Heh, you're talking" he slowly shook his head. A new wave of coughs choking out of his throat "Force I am not helping myself like this..." he said more to himself than anyone else, before attempting to stand up.

Attempting because as soon as he stood a wave of nausea hit him and force him to sit back down. He quickly brought a hand to his forehead and leaned his head back.

Oh it was his asthma alright.

Tommy inwardly groaned. There was no way he was making it to the healers alive now.

He slowly reached into his robes and pulled out the one thing he knew would fix this (before it got out of hand at least.) The small self applied inhaler that was always with him for things like this.

He brought it to his mouth and took a few shots from it........except.....something wasn't right.

Tommy's eyes suddenly widened as he realized....it was empty.

Half angered, half frustrated, and maybe even a bit afraid, the knight hurled the inhaler at the wall next to him, just barely missing the holo-tv.

Shyma jerked back a bit as the small device obliterated upon impact, but then decided at this point he could do little to harm her. She got off the couch and moved closer to her master, seating herself on the edge of the coffee table in front of him.

She stared at the man in front of her, waiting for a reaction. Not getting much due to the fact his head was bowed to his chest. All she saw was the short shallows gasps of air he took, and the slight tremor his body gave of every few seconds.

"Call Luke..." Tommy said slowly, still not looking up.

"Luke? Why-" But Shyma was cut off as her master snapped his head up and barked "Go next door and kriffing call Luke!"

"He's not home" Shyma said almost instantly. She didn't understand why he didn't pick that up. There where barely any force presences within the entire floor, and none of them where human. His senses couldn't be that out of whack....

"How do you-" this time Shyma cut Tommy off with a loud "I sense it! He's not home"

"Force" Tommy turned swiftly away from his apprentice "Always there when he doesn't need to be and here I am fucking dying and the only witness is going to be a 12 year old girl. Not my closest friend, no he's all talk" he muttered to himself. With another cough, the knight felt his breathing become heavy.

"Hey! Don't talk about Luke like that!" Shyma furrowed her brows.

"Amazing, even the 12 year old girl doesn't care" Tommy rolled his eyes the best he could and leaned further back in the couch. His attempts to hide what true pain he was in from his apprentice, failing.

"I do, care. For force's sake maybe that's why no one bothers to care. Cause you act like they don't" Shyma growled staring hard at her master's slowly dulling grey eyes.

"You care" Tommy smirked.

"I do. That's why I'm not gonna let you die...at least not like this" Shyma said quietly.

Tommy stared at her for a long time before she spoke "Gimme your hands."

"Wha..." he whispered. It was either just him or it was extremely cold in the living room.

"Give me your hands" Shyma said a bit more clearly.

"Why?" Tommy muttered, growing more and more frustrated by the second. And if Shyma didn't know better she would have sworn she saw fear in those cold emotionless eyes.

"Dammit, do you want to live or not?!" Shyma growled.

"Yes but..." Tommy broke off, feeling his throat dry. More than anything he wanted to live.....But at what cost?

Shyma didn't bother to answer the question she heard through their bond. She was sure Tommy hadn't meant to think that through their bond and she wasn't ready to face the consequences of intruding upon his thoughts.

Instead she just took his hands and clasped them with her own.

Tommy felt his head give a quick spin and his vision began to blur at an alarming rate.

"Stay with me master, this isn't going to work if you pass out, ok?" he heard Shyma say. What's not gonna work?

"I'm going to...my own life force...to you....ok?" Tommy, only having heard fragments of what his apprentice had said, just weakly nodded.

She doesn't know what she's doing. Tommy told himself. There was no way she could save him now. She was too young, too inexperienced. This was the end.

He allowed his eyes to flutter closed. His body to become limp. His mind to surrender to the cold. His soul to surrender to death.

….

And then....and then a flash of blinding whiteness overcame his vision. A more than welcome warmth flooded his senses. And a new feel of life rushed into his soul.

And then....darkness.

SW

SW ****** SW

SW