"Their route is along the Corellian Run hyperlane, heading for Denon," Ky observed from the data displayed on her datapad. "Set a course toward that destination for now. They're at least a half day ahead of us, let's see what this tub will do, shall we?"
"We were lucky the ship was prepared for travel, at least the fuel tanks are full," said Corso as he found the beacon for Denon on the nav computer, ran the calculations and initiated the jump.
The layers of Corso peeled back once they were safely away and he winced when he moved his leg and arm. His eyes widened in alarm when he saw the blood stain on her shirt.
"Stars, babe, we need to get you to the med bay." He stood up and hobbled the two steps to where she sat.
"I'd say you're a bit worse off than I am but now's not the time for quibbling. Let's say we both head there, deal?"
"Deal," he said and paled under his dark complexion, starting to sway on his feet.
She'd hardly gotten him to the med bay under his own steam and onto the exam bed before he passed out. She searched the drawers and came back with surgical scissors, bandages, antiseptic wipes and tubes of kolto gel. The kolto tank stood silent and woefully empty, and she hadn't found any injectors, yet.
Her knees nearly buckled with relief when water poured from the sink faucet into the stainless basin she held under the tap. One less thing to worry about. She rummaged through the cabinet underneath and came away with an armload of washcloths and towels.
Removal of Corso's jacket and outer shirt proved to be troublesome enough with having to roll his body back and forth on the narrow bed. Not having the strength to wrangle his deadweight, she opted to cut away most of his pant leg to get to the wound on his thigh. The plasma bolt had burned through flesh and into the muscle beneath.
The only good thing about a blaster bolt was that it cauterized the capillaries on entry, the skin didn't bleed much, most of the blood oozing from Corso's leg came from deeper inside. At least it hadn't hit a major blood vessel. She cleaned and then packed kolto into the jagged hole, thankful he was unconscious since she hadn't found any sort of anesthetic among the supplies, not even numb-spray.
His arm had only been grazed, his jacket and shirt being the real victims with a neat hole burned through from front to back of the upper sleeve. A light slathering of gel and clean bandage were all that was required.
She searched the med bay again and found a couple of half full boxes of kolto and antibiotic injectors in one of the side cabinets which she administered to Corso. Covering him with a blanket she'd discovered, she moved to the sink and splashed water on her face and the back of her neck and rinsed out her mouth before taking a couple of sips from her cupped hand.
The stim had worn off as well as her own adrenaline, and numbing tiredness seeped into every extremity and pore of her body. She'd forgotten about her personal injuries until her shirt pulled at the wound across her back where the material had likely adhered to the dried blood.
Going back to the tray with the med supplies she'd left by the med bed, she untucked her shirt hem from her trousers and pulled it up far enough to see the damage. A path of burns scored along her side, superficial and not much blood. Bright side? It was opposite her impalement injury, the dermaseal patch still securely in place. Not so bright side? She suspected her back was worse, and she couldn't reach it.
Picking up a clean cloth, the basin of bloodied water and a packet of antiseptic wipes she headed back toward the sink to tend herself and wished she'd thought to bring the damned rolling tray with her. Her brain became fuzzy and scrambled as time wore on, but she managed to clean her own wound and trudge back to the tray for kolto and bandages. She wished like hell she had another stim to get her over the hump.
Tough shit, she was all she had right now.
She injected herself with a kolto infusion and antibiotics then gathered up the wrappers and bloody wipes and threw them into the nearest trash receptacle before returning to Corso's bedside.
Stars, he is beautiful. She gazed down at his darkly tan face which had already lost much of its pallor. A heavy sigh puffed between her lips as she fastened the restraining strap across his chest so he wouldn't fall out of bed.
She pulled the rolling stool up to the bed, locked the wheels and sat, leaning forward and crossing her arms on the edge of the mattress, wincing slightly when her shirt pulled along her back.
Just gonna close my eyes for a bit, were the last conscious words to fleet across her mind as her head lolled forward onto her arms.
"Ky?"
Someone called her name from far away. Was it dinner time already? She'd only been outside playing for a short while. The sun heated her clothing, lifting the fresh spring smell of laundry soap from the blue gingham overalls and white shirt. Birdsong filled the air, and insects hummed in the thicket bordering the field of newly sown oats. She turned, and her father waved at her from the back door of the small farmhouse. No, not waving, telling her to run before he fell, the side of his face disappearing in a crimson cloud.
She ran, crushing grass under tiny feet, grass that sprang up behind her as if she'd never passed at all. The tail of the stuffed tauntaun smooshed in her tightly gripped hand its body thudded against her legs. She crawled into the thicket, ignoring the thorns that pricked her skin as she scurried forward until gnarled, interwoven branches blocked her advance.
"Shh, Fooly, itta be a'right," she whispered to the toy now clutched to her heaving chest with spindly, shaking arms. Booted feet, barked orders, the crackle of snapping twigs and rustling of leaves, bucket head with dead, glass eyes, black-gloved hand reaching, grip of iron, painful and bruising.
"Papa," she screamed startling herself awake. Befuddled and blinking in the harsh white light she had no idea where she was. A dark hand lay on her arm, gripping lightly. She jerked back as if scalded, knocking over the stool, the sound piercing into her skull like an awl through soft leather. Her feet tangled and she fell, crab-walking backward until a wall thudded into her back. She pulled her knees up under her chin, buried her face in her hands and dissolved into a quivering mass of flesh, waiting for them to take her again.
Corso unbuckled the restraining strap, sprang upright, slung his legs to the side and slid off the bed ignoring the searing flash of pain in his thigh. His vision blurred, his head pounded with every rush of blood pumped by a hammering heart. Nausea cramped his stomach, but he flung self-interest aside to get to her.
She deconstructed, shattered by something from her past, an apparition she faced alone and never shared. Twice now in the three years they'd traveled together he'd seen her disintegrate into fragile shards and the only glue he had to put her back together was time and patience. Bowdaar had been the one to shelter her before he came on the scene, neither Akaavi nor Risha having the disposition and Guss being too skittish. The Wookie had hummed Kashyyk lullabies to bring her back from whatever hell she was lost in.
Corso dared not touch her, having been on the receiving end when she lashed out in blind terror, and any premature contact worsened the situation. His only recourse was to sit by her side uttering sing-song words of unthreatening calm.
"Hush baby, hush. I'm here my love. You are safe, come back, come home," he crooned, his attention sharply focused on her hunched, quivering shoulders.
To see her reduced to this state tore at him. The woman he knew and loved never backed down, gave as good as she got and ran toward danger, usually having created that danger herself. Perhaps her wanton disregard for self-preservation and outward bravado stood in defiance to this secret prison she could not escape.
Little by little her shoulders relaxed, her breathing slowed, she lowered her hands and gazed about as if confused and vaguely surprised by her surroundings. Corso patted his uninjured thigh, and she accepted the invitation, crawling to his side and laying her head on his leg, curling her body inward while he stroked her hair and continued his monotonous litany.
He'd noted the smear of blood across her back, now dried to a blackish burgundy stain. It would need tending as soon as she was ready to get up and he needed a med scanner to check his head. He suspected a mild concussion since it continued to thump like a Tusken kettledrum and waves of nausea still plagued him.
Minutes crawled by while he continued combing his fingers through her hair, the hum of the ship nearly lulling them both to sleep. Ky unfurled and stretched, sitting up, at last, her eyes clear of whatever memory had spiraled her out of control. Unsteady at first, she dragged herself to her feet and extended her arm to aid Corso in rising as well.
Stiff from being immobile for so long, he stood for a while, supporting himself against the wall before hobbling back toward the bed. It would be back to business now, it always was. Personal discourse and exposing secrets remained a burden too heavy for either to bear.
"I need a scanner, and we have to get your back treated," he stated weakly, sinking down on the stool Ky had just set upright.
"Honey, I'm so sorry I missed this," she apologized once the scanner she'd found in a drawer under the bed confirmed his concussion. A closer examination revealed a decent sized lump on the side of his head.
"I vaguely recall being thrown against the ship door when the probe exploded," he said. "Guess I hit harder than I thought."
"You need to stay awake now. Here, use one of these." She removed the wrapper from a Perigen patch. "It's non-narcotic. Makes you feel better without knocking you out."
He tended to her back, using water to loosen the fabric of her shirt before slipping it from her shoulders and letting it fall to the floor. She flinched when he touched the sensitive area over her shoulder blades and waved away his apologies while he cleaned and applied kolto and bandages.
"We better see what this ship has to offer. Both of us with no shirt and you half pantsed for the entire trip is gonna get damned cold and uncomfortable," she smiled, leaning in to give him a quick kiss.
She would never talk about what had happened, and he was wise enough to simply add it to the tally of all the other unspoken things that lay between them.