Chapter 4
Doctor Zha held Luke's pill container in the palm of his hand, then he slipped it into his pristine coat pocket. Luke watched, crooking an eyebrow that caused a shudder of pain to roll through him.
"The current medications can affect your brain's usual electrical activities. Taking them can skew your test results." Doctor Zha patted his pocket, flipping through the clipboarded flimsi with his other hand. "Along with your medications, I'll have to ask you to stay away from caffeinated food and drink."
The twinkle in his eyes made Luke burn with shame. He hadn't been able to eat anything richer than broth or ice chips since he woke up for good two days ago.
"That's it?"
"Take a bath tonight. Wash your hair out good."
Luke nodded, not sure what that had to do with anything at all.
He sat up in his bed, sheets folded underneath him. The lights were dimmed for his concussion, his bandaged arm resting gingerly against his sore stomach. His braced leg stretched out in front of him. In those two days, he'd been exhausted, more asleep than awake. His pain, instead of lessening, got worse each time he woke, as if he had spent the hours resting aggravating the wounds until they bit and bled.
"What about all the bandages?" Luke asked. Doctor Zha set down the clipboard and reached out for Luke's leg. With two calculated yanks, the straps to the thick, black brace gave. Luke grimaced at the dull, thudding pain of the swollen limb.
"The brace comes off. Hold your arm above the water. Let someone else scrub."
Luke swallowed hard, nodding again. "I'll do my best."
"And we'll do ours, Mr. Skywalker." The doctor strapped the brace back together. Luke squeaked. "The electroencephalogram is scheduled for tomorrow at nine."
"Yes sir."
As Doctor Zha turned to leave, he said: "Oh, and Luke?"
"Yes sir?"
"I have to ask you not to sleep tonight."
Luke shook his head, setting his sore jaw in determination. "Whatever it takes to find out what's wrong with me, and get me back to the Alliance."
The doctor nodded. "Keep yourself occupied, we'll get the test results as soon as we can, and get you back to the front. No caffeine." He gave a pointed eyebrow raise.
Luke held up a weak thumbs up with his bad arm. "No caffeine. I'll stay busy."
Doctor Zha walked out of the room, leaving Luke to stare at his braced ankle, his throbbing arm, his patched chest, and his stitched neck one after the other, after the other.
Han stared at Luke with a quizzical frown. "So you want to go explore Mon Motha's private hideaway with your little crutch?"
"Not the whole thing. Just the dining hall."
"Right. So you want to go to the dining hall of Mon Motha's private hideaway with your crutch. And your broken ankle."
"Han, if you're worried you can come with me."
Han snorted, poking at the stack of paperwork that sat on the bedside table. Luke's legs dangled over the edge of the bed, crutches poised under his arms. "I'm supposed to be reading the legal garbage for this test which I can't even pronounce, let alone agree to let my friend do."
"It's electro-encephal-o-gram."
"Don't get cocky, kid."
Luke tucked his chin into his chest and smiled. His eyelids were starting to droop an hour in to his all-nighter before the test. The inevitable soreness without all the doses of pain medication in his system was starting to creep into his chest, his arm, his leg. The little lamps on the walls itched at the headache between his eyes. Still, he saved the smile as Han looked him over, overanalyzing him.
"Alright, fine. Go on your exciting new adventure."
Luke quickly gathered the crutches under his arms. "I'll be back in an hour."
"I should hope so," Han mumbled, shifting through the paperwork again. "Eat something, for all our sake's. Something beefy. Anything other than ice chips."
Luke was all the way to the door before Han placed the flimsi down again. "And take Chewie with you!"
Luke peeked out the glass double doors to see the Wookiee sitting patiently on a bench outside of his room, scratching at his hairy thigh.
"Hey…" Luke said, squinting between Han and Chewie, both wearing nonchalance like a cheating sabacc player.
Han shrugged, flopping the pile of paperwork onto the ground. "Scoundrels! Caught us!"
Luke shook his head, smirking. He tried to push the door with the end of his crutch, then with his good shoulder. They didn't budge. Chewie stood and took the door handle, opening it wide enough for Luke to limp through.
"Uughgughhhgh wrrhw aarrragghuuhw uuh," he said to Han over Luke's head. Han waved them away, feigning a studious pose.
"I know you will, Chewie. Just get out of here, will you?"
Chewie grinned and closed the door behind them.
Luke crutched down the long white hallway, Chewie lumbering alongside of him quietly. A few lingering droids turned to look at them, but none of the facility's few nurses paused their work. In a set of half-closed doors, Luke glimpsed Zha with two droids near a large screen.
He quickened his crutching.
Mon Motha's dining area consisted of a long slender table with pristine white benches to match, a counter manned by a small silver droid, and a water faucet with white plastic cups. The bright, iridescent lights burned holes into Luke's head, and Chewie guided him to a seat as he hissed from pain. When the soft hand disappeared from his shoulder, he hesitated in placing his crutch down. With watering eyes, he searched the little area for his friend.
Because—what if everything he had been told was wrong, and the Emperor wasn't dead, and Vader hadn't disappeared, and they were looking for him, waiting for their opportunity to strike—
The lights dimmed, and Luke blinked and blinked as scenery appeared.
Chewbacca stood by the light switch.
While Luke arranged his crutch so that he could access it quickly and without help, Chewie ordered two plates of food from the little droid. She slipped into the back room, reappearing with a plate of green gelatin and broth. Luke swallowed the stomach acid he could already taste on the back of his tongue.
Chewie set the two plates down on the table, staring at Luke expectantly.
Luke poked a few holes in the cubes of green gelatin, wishing for his stomach to settle down. His hands shook, his lips dry and cracked. His whole body felt tense.
Chewie shook his head. "Aarrragghuuhw raahhgh."
He set his fork down, looking at the cubes with a queasy expression.
"I don't think I can eat it, Chew," he said. Chewie pushed the plate closer, pointedly. "I'll eat after the testing's done."
Chewbacca rubbed his eyes, growling and mumbling, but Luke's brain had clogged up again. He stared at the white plaster without blinking. His bandaged arm rested heavily on the table, the near perfect right angle making it awkward and painful to lean on. It throbbed and pulsed from the slowly dwindling pain medication. And he was already exhausted…
"Raahhgh raahhgh aaaaahnr!"
Luke licked his lips. "I know the testing is tomorrow, Chew, but I…" Chewie pushed the plate even closer, picking up a spoon in his large, furry hands. He dipped it into the broth and held it up to Luke's mouth. "What? Oh, no, Chewie. I-I-I—I can feed myself. Thank you, though."
Chewie cocked his head. "Aarrragghuuhw huurh uugggh uuh."
Luke nearly choked.
Chewbacca fed him when he was out?
The image of Chewie spooning liquids to him while he laid on the bed, white as the sheets—completely oblivious to all his friends were doing for him, going through for him—flashed through his mind. Chewie's rare spurts of patience that shone through when he was around Luke, his fatherly companionship, his protective nature… Luke could now remember Chewbacca's hands pushing his hair gently away from his forehead.
"I—thanks, Chew. I owe you one."
Chewbacca just wiggled the spoon by Luke's face. Luke took his good hand and guided it back to the plate.
"I'll try the green stuff, how about that?"
The Wookiee agreed.
Luke had made it a total of ten hours awake and he felt awful.
His arm had gone from throbbing to screaming, his foot uncomfortably tight in his brace. His chest bandage had been taken off, revealing the pocks of stitches and bruises, of smaller gauze pads and bacta patches. The visual made him feel even worse.
Leia sat patiently at his bedside, receiving droid instructions and nurse's admonitions while Luke zoned in and out of conversation. He would nod, lids closed, when it seemed appropriate to. Leia would rest a warning hand when his eyes shut for too long.
After some time, the droids skittered out of the room and only one human nurse remained, talking softly to Leia in the far corner of the room. If he strained, he could hear pieces.
"—be careful of the—"
"—he's just so—"
"I know, but—"
Luke settled into the pillows, eyes drifting closed for just a few seconds… he wouldn't fall asleep…
"Luke?"
Leia's voice drifted through the sparks of golden light that had started to form in Luke's dreams. He started, snapping up out of the pillows, eyes wide.
"I'm fine," he said, feeling the sleep in his aching bones even as he said so. Leia frowned, reaching out and tracing a line along his jaw where the pattern of the pillow was etched in.
"And I believe that." She smiled a sad smile, and her fingers disappeared from his face.
The last humanoid nurse in the room approached him, unbuttoning the back of his tunic and tossing it on the bed beside him. Left in his briefs, Luke looked up at the nurse with a wide-eyed expression.
"Bathing patients is by far one of the easiest things I do in a day, Mr. Skywalker," the nurse said pointedly to his expression. Luke tried not to blush.
The next thing he knew he had his crutch under his arm and the nurse was ushering him into the 'fresher. The small porcelain bathtub sat across from the toilet and sink. There was a flimsy curtain, a bar of soap, and the basin Luke had spent most of the last two days retching into.
He could feel his heartbeat inside his ribs.
Not the normal lub dub, lub dub of normal hearts. Something different.
More like flutter stutter.
He leaned his crutch on the sink and the nurse helped him with taking the brace off of his foot. The stitches along his neck strained against his bare, shivery skin, a dark rift.
The nurse took his bandaged hand carefully. "How do you feel?"
"Um," Luke started, staring down at his feet. "Dizzy?"
She took his good hand in her greenish-tinged one then, helping him hop to the edge of the tub. He sat, staring at the ceiling as his briefs came off with a whisk.
The faucet whirred to life as Luke lowered himself into the bath gingerly, grateful for the sizeable handrail installed.
"Now, I'll do my best to clean you up," the nurse said, wrapping Luke's arm full of clear plastic until it was twice the size and glittering with the thin, clear substance. "And all you have to do is keep your arm dry. Can you do that for me, Mr. Skywalker?"
Luke nodded, feeling his blush reach his ears.
The jarring soap bar stung in his healing cuts. Squirming, he tweaked his ankle wrong, which sent himself into a flurry of agony and regret. When the white spots cleared, the nurse sat staring at him with the bottle of shampoo in her hands.
"Mr. Skywalker?"
Luke couldn't bring himself to answer. He just lifted his arm a little higher out of the water and scrubbed at his wet face with the other.
The nurse massaged the shampoo in and rinsed it out just as quickly, talking about how important it was to have clean hair for the test. Luke nodded when he thought it would be appropriate, keeping his eyes trained on the white porcelain lip of the tub.
The water started to curl and drain underneath him. The nurse rubbed a towel over his dripping hair, gently patting down the stitches on his neck and cuts on his shoulders. He winced a few times when the fabric caught on a scab or stitch. The nurse would note it and slow down her scrubbing.
"There," the nurse said as she placed the towel down and braced his ankle again. "Let's get you out."
She took his good arm—if he could call it that—at the elbow, and slowly helped Luke out of the bath and back to his feet. The nurse swept over his body one last time before she helped him dress, tugging the thin linen over his tender ankle and replacing the boot. She ripped open new packets of gauze and bandaged his chest, the bacta patches clammy against his drying skin. Then, wrapping his tunic back around him, she congratulated him on his keeping his arm dry as she unraveled the fifty feet of plastic wrap.
Luke tried at a smile, but not with much effort.
Then, careful not to slip on the puddle-ridden floor, Luke crutched out of the 'fresher, glare set and ready for Leia when he got into the room. The Princess sat with grace and dignity on his bed, ankles tucked, with a packet of flimsi on her lap. Luke assumed it was the portion that Han didn't get around to reading.
"Oh, you're done?" she commented, looking up briefly.
Luke crutched over to the bed, mumbling. The nurse clapped her hands.
"He was a model patient." The nurse dipped her head at both of them on the bed. "If you don't have any questions, my shift is almost up."
"No, we're set here. Thank you, Oonan," Leia said.
Luke set his crutches down with a clattering thunk.
Jedi don't feel hate, he scorned himself as he scowled at the nurse all the way out the door.
As soon as the glass door shut, and the nurse disappeared from their view, Leia was laughing. Great, heaving laughs. Luke snorted, slipping under the covers and levering his braced foot up onto a pile of pillows. To his great chagrin, it didn't give much relief.
"Did you enjoy yourself?" Leia grinned.
Luke let his head sink into the pillows, eyes closing. "Leia."
She patted his cheek. "Sleeping isn't allowed until tomorrow."
Luke pried one eye open, looking at the clock on the wall. "It is tomorrow."
He had made it to one in the morning standard time. Only seven hours left.
Leia smiled, shaking a finger at him. "Very clever."
The room descended into silence. The beeping noise that had accompanied him for his last two conscious days was gone—they had taken off the oximeter and the monitoring system as soon as he was up and around on his own two feet. He couldn't say he missed it, but… wasn't there something to the idea of knowing he was still alive? That his heartbeat was filling the room, lessening the ache in his chest just a little to hear it still worked, no matter how backwards the rhythm?
Leia touched his cheek again, this time lightly, lingering on the purple bruise gathered at his cheekbone. If he focused too hard, the dark color made it hard to see.
"You're so brave, Luke."
Leia's eyes shimmered, and Luke made a promise to pretend to be braver.
"I'm just a kid from Tatooine."
Leia laughed again, but softer this time. Full of regret, of nerves. "Well, we can't have this. Out of the bed; I want to take a walk with you."
Luke pulled his crutch back under his sore armpit, feeling every part of his body groan from the movement. I'll die before I show it hurts, he swore to himself as he hopped up onto his feet. Leia deserves so much more than this, than me like this.
She put one hand to the small of his back.
"Lead the way," he said, ignoring the way the words burned all the way out of his throat.
Seven hours crawled by, hyperspace time without the hyperspace, flexing and bending with each agonizing moment Luke's stinging eyes stayed open.
A droid came in the door to wheel him to the testing room, shiny and smelling of strong sanitation. Luke's head was swimming with lack of sleep and the pain churning in his gut, and while he knew his friends were wishing him good luck, he didn't hear a word through his screaming skull.
The specialist stood outside the room he had seen with Chewie, both doors closed. He was short, stocky Twi'lek with blue skin and a brilliant white coat. Doctor Zha stood to the side, looking Luke over while he worried his lip.
"I'm your neurologist," the Twi'lek said, sticking out his hand. Luke reached out to grab it, grimacing at the effort it required. "Follow me, please."
The droid pushed him forward through the double doors, and Luke saw the machine in full. It's strange wires and screen, the long gray bed, a chair in the corner. The neurologist motioned to everything.
"Would you rather sit or recline?"
"Recline," Luke answered quickly. Thank the Force.
The droid and Doctor Zha helped Luke onto the bed, guiding his head onto the thin pillow. The neurologist reappeared in Luke's line of sight holding little, flat, metal discs. He called them electrodes, and split jobs between the three beings: the neurologist would place a disc on Luke's skull, the droid held his head steady, and Doctor Zha would layer a slab of sticky paste on his skin so the disc would stick down. Luke lost count of the electrodes at eleven, when they put one in his nose.
"I'm just going to hook these up to my computer now, Master Skywalker," the neurologist said. "That's how we'll read the electrical activity results."
The wires were connected one by one, a snapping noise that echoed in Luke's head long after they were finished with the task.
"Now go ahead and close your eyes." Luke obeyed, feeling the relief of letting his eyelids close for longer than a blink or two. "And listen to me."
Luke tried, feeling the pull of sleep so close to him that it hurt.
The neurologist asked him to take deep, rapid breaths—twenty at a time, for exactly a minute. Luke tried to do his best, feeling the awful tightness in his ribs from hyperventilation. When the minute was up, he was asked to do it again.
And again.
He felt light headed, his fingers went numb.
"Good, Luke. Well done," Doctor Zha said. Luke squeezed away the tears gathering in the corners of his eyes. He could feel his heart thundering in his chest. "Now, can you open your eyes for me?"
Luke did so slowly.
The room went silent as Luke was allowed to stretch and regain his breath.
"I'm going to show you a light we call a strobe, whenever you're ready."
Luke didn't answer, and a bright light flickered into existence, flashing quickly and brightly in his eyes. He yelped, raising his hands to block the light out. The droid appeared at his side and held his arms to the bed.
Through the awful, skull-splitting pain, he heard the neurologist "hmm."
When the light turned off, it was as if the world had stopped spinning for a few seconds, and all was quiet. He blinked and blinked, licking his dry lips and keening from the pound in his forehead.
"Sorry, Luke. We won't do that again to you. It was a test," Doctor Zha apologized, but it didn't sound like much of an apology. "How is your head?"
"Hurts," Luke croaked. Doctor Zha apologized again.
A stretch of time wafted by, and Luke lay still, only moving when the test stopped and Doctor Zha told him he could stretch his limbs.
His heart kept stuttering away, loud and hard in his chest, ears.
"Luke, settle back down," the neurologist ordered, face lit with the computer screen. "We're starting again."
Luke did, settling back into the pillow and tucking his arms in at his sides.
"Alright, kiddo," Doctor Zha said, clapping Luke lightly on the shoulder. "Here's the moment you've been waiting for. Go ahead and take a nap."
"What?"
"You're allowed to catch a few winks. It's a part of the test—why we asked you to stay up so long the night before."
Luke lay surprised for a moment before he shut his eyes.
He lay there for fifteen minutes. Twenty.
"Don't be afraid, my son."
His father's voice, rising out of the grimy depths of his nightmares, his pale lips struggling to shape the words of comfort. A bead of blood appeared, then poured out his father's mouth, his ears. Luke's hands were wet with it, his knees faltering underneath him as the duct blew out the aftershocks of the explosion.
Father, forgive me, Luke mouthed desperately as the blue flames ate at their flesh, their vision, their last words.
His father's eyes met his.