Author's Note: You're all about to understand why relatives aren't allowed in trauma examination rooms with patients. Fun fact: I actually do work in a hospital for a living. The stories I could tell. I couldn't resist putting myself into this story. The banter that happens is a daily occurrence at work. It helps us cope with the things we see. I have made up the characters, but my interactions with them have been real. I have managed to dial down the medical talk, so you can all follow along.

Chapter 13 - Please don't leave

A stormtrooper transport had touched down behind Kylo. He let a mask of calm indifference settle onto his features as he swiveled on his feet, carrying Rey towards the ship.

"Take us to the nearest hospital. Notify them of our impending arrival," he barked at the group of soldiers standing at attention, awaiting his orders.

They scrambled on board and began searching the database for the coordinates to the nearest medical facility.

Kylo laid Rey down onto a padded bench seat just inside. He pressed his glove firmly over her head wound. She was already looking pale, and her breathing was shallow. She was dressed in a Resistance pilot uniform.

He pointed to a stormtrooper at his side. "You," he growled.

The trooper flinched. "Yes, my lord," came the modulated reply.

"Get me a medkit now," Kylo roared.

The soldier quickly followed his orders. The ship jolted slightly as it began to take off.

When the stormtrooper returned, Kylo continued to give him orders. "Use the gauze and apply pressure," he instructed.

The soldier obeyed his commands. Kylo's hands found a clip and unfastened it.

"Sir?" the soldier said, pulling back his hand from the wound on Rey's head. What is he doing?

"Keep applying pressure," Kylo demanded. "We can't let anyone know she's with the Resistance."

The stormtrooper nodded in understanding.

Please be wearing more than your underwear. Kylo didn't want to expose Rey more than necessary. He needed to check her for any other injuries. Carefully, he unclipped the belts and unzipped the front of the orange jumpsuit, revealing her tan tunic and pants underneath. Good girl.

"What's our ETA?" Kylo hollered to the front of the ship.

"Three minutes. My lord," came the reply from the pilot.

Kylo delicately pulled off the Resistance Uniform, taking care to inspect her skin for any new wounds. He had slid it off her shoulders and slowly removed her arms. When he got down to removing the bottom half, he noticed the black lace-up boots he had given her. Cute.

He undid them and yanked them free. Once she was liberated from the jumpsuit, he tossed it to the side. The most serious wound was located on her head. He found mostly minor scrapes and red marks everywhere else. He knew she would be heavily bruised in the morning.

Rey still hadn't regained consciousness. This detail concerned him the most.

The ship came to a stop on a landing pad.

"I want two guards posted at every exit," Kylo commanded. "The girl is not to leave the hospital with anyone but me."

The stormtroopers replied in unison, "Yes, sir."

The ramp beside them started to lower. A hospital response team had a hover bed ready for Rey. They helped transfer her onto it.

A man wearing a long white coat with mousey brown hair and glasses began firing off questions at Kylo.

"How long ago did she lose consciousness?" He was opening Rey's eyelids and shining a light in her eyes to check her pupil reflexes.

Kylo was marching alongside the gurney. "Less than 10 minutes ago," he answered.

"What's her name?" The man asked.

"Re…" Kylo paused, then said, "Lady Ren." He didn't want anyone, especially the Resistance, to know she was there, so using her title seemed the safest option.

The man nodded. "I'm Dr. Stephens." He looked back down at Rey. "Lady Ren? Can you hear me?"

Rey didn't respond. He placed a finger in her hand. "Squeeze my finger if you can hear me." Again, Rey didn't move.

The hospital doors were thrown open, and people began scurrying out of the way. For once, it wasn't Kylo or his soldiers that caused them to move.

In fact, no one seemed to give Kylo a second glance. It did help that he wasn't wearing his cape, and the stormtroopers had not entered the building with the team escorting Rey.

A young woman with kind eyes stepped in front of him when they reached a set of doors. "I'm sorry, staff only beyond this point," she said.

Kylo wanted to argue, but he knew it wouldn't do him any good. He watched through the circular glass window as Rey disappeared into a room out of sight.

The lady's voice was calm and reassuring. "I know this is difficult, but I have a few questions that need to be answered."

Kylo glanced down and noticed she held a holopad in her hand. She had her dark hair swept back into a messy bun and blew a free strand of hair off her face. "What's your relationship to her?" She asked.

He tilted his head and said, "I'm her partner."

"Are you married? I'm sorry for asking specifics," she clarified. "I just need to know if you're her next of kin."

We'll be married soon. "Yes, I'm her family," he replied.

She peered at the screen and then at him. "Do either of you have insurance?"

"I'll be paying privately for her care," he informed her.

"Does she have any allergies?" she questioned.

"None that I'm aware of," Kylo said as he thought about everything he knew about Rey. "She had limited medical care growing up," he revealed. "I don't think she's had any pain relief before."

The lady nodded without looking up. "I'm guessing that means you don't know her blood type."

He shrugged. "No idea."

"Any religious beliefs or customs we should be aware of?" she inquired.

She's the Last Jedi of the Resistance. "Nothing you need to know," he answered.

She met Kylo's gaze and said, "I know this sounds strange, but do you know her weight? It helps us calculate the drug dosage more accurately."

"54 kilograms," he replied.

The lady bit her lip and asked, "Is she pregnant? Or do you think she could be?"

"No, I'm confident she's not," Kylo responded.

The woman was busy entering Kylo's answers when a man with a goatee, dressed in scrubs, pushed open the door behind her. "Cris? Dr. Stephens wants you," he said.

She looked back and nodded before turning to Kylo. "Take this," Cris said as she handed him a towel from a nearby linen shelf. "There's a restroom just around the corner. You'll be able to clean yourself up. We'll update you as soon as we can."

She then followed the man through the doors in the direction they had taken Rey.

Kylo exhaled and went to the refresher. After locking the door and turning to face the mirror, he was able to carefully examine his appearance. Blood was splashed across the side of his left cheek from his ear down to the side of his mouth. It had dribbled down his chin and covered most of his neck.

He walked to the sink and moistened the corner of the towel. He washed off as much of Rey's body fluid as he could, in a quick and steady motion. Once he was done he cleaned off his gloves. The white towel was heavily streaked with red now.

Kylo felt the force shift around him. "Hello, kid," he heard a voice say. When he looked up, he saw his uncle, Luke Skywalker, casually leaning against the wall behind him.

Luke was bathed in a slight blue glow, wearing his Jedi Robes with his arms crossed across his chest. He looked similar to the projection that Kylo had attempted to fight against. "I told you I'd see you around," Luke said.

"What are you doing here, old man?" Kylo viciously spat. He tossed the towel in his hand onto the basin.

"Isn't it obvious?" Luke replied. "I'm here for you."

Kylo snorted. "I don't need you."

Luke rolled his eyes. "Still the same, I see. I thought your love for the girl would calm you down."

Kylo glared at him. "Don't you dare bring her into this."

Luke smirked. "I knew you couldn't destroy her."

"Enough!" Kylo thundered.

He was beginning to shake when he felt a change in Rey. Her signature was weakening. Panic was engulfing her.

"I sense it too," Luke said.

Kylo focused on his bond, shifting his surroundings to hers. Kylo's eyes grew wide at the scene before him. Rey was violently coughing up blood, and Cris was rolling her onto her side toward him.

The front of her tunic had been cut open, and she had been hooked up to a heart monitor. Her heart rate was elevated, but the staff around her were calm. The continuous beeping was racing through the monitor.

"Mrs. Ren, it's going to be okay," Cris called out to the doctor. "Dan, we need to bring her heart rate down."

"Give her 10 mg of morphine," Dr. Stephens instructed, calling out over his shoulder. He was examining a chest x-ray that was on a light-up panel on the wall on the other side of Rey.

"She has a fractured rib. It has pierced her lung," he mumbled, speaking more to himself than to the group. "She's internally bleeding. I need to get in there," he said, raising his voice. "Prep for surgery," he instructed the male nurse with the goatee beside him. "Notify her husband."

Before the nurse could leave, Rey began seizing. She was clenching her teeth, and her muscles were constricting. She was thrashing involuntarily on the bed.

"Shit. Keep her steady..."

Rey's body became slack. Her arm fell off the bed, causing the monitor to emit a continuous, high-pitched beep.

Kylo was violently ripped away from Rey and brought back to the Refresher. He struggled to breathe, feeling a hollow emptiness in his chest.

Collapsing to his knees, he tried to comprehend what was happening. A shock jolted through his body, causing intense pain to radiate throughout him, much like force lightning. It happened again, causing his teeth to grind together.

He looked up to see his uncle. Tears were leaking out of Kylo's eyes and down his face. "I can't lose her," he weakly cried out. "It all means nothing without her."

"Reach out with your feelings," Luke smiled. "Your journey with her is not over."

Kylo closed his eyes and focused. When he opened them, he saw Rey lying on her back with Dr. Stephens standing over her, holding paddles.

The doctor exhaled, "That was a close one, ladies and gentlemen. Let's get her into a theatre."

Rey was unconscious again, and her heart rate was steady on the monitor.

Cris removed a pair of bloody gloves and threw them into a yellow bin marked as clinical waste. "I'll let her husband know," she said. Dr. Stephens looked up and met her gaze. "Hurry up. I need my favorite scrub nurse."

"I'm sure you'll survive without me for a few minutes," Cris playfully replied. "Just make sure she does too."

He mockingly saluted her. "Yes, ma'am. I couldn't survive another one of your silent treatment episodes."

She pointed a finger at him. "I'm still mad at you for eating the last chocolate bar."

"In my defense, I thought there was another one left," he explained. "You normally have more in your secret stash. I promise to shout you lunch to make up for it."

"Deal." She shook her head. "You're lucky I share with you at all."

He flashed a smile at her. "Don't say that. You know you love me."

She smiled back. "Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Keep telling yourself that," she said as she disappeared out of the room, grabbing the holopad on her way out.

An orderly turned to Dr. Stephens. "Are you two..." he trailed off.

Dr. Stephens laughed. "Cris and I? No way, mate." They began to wheel Rey's bed into the hallway towards the operating theatre. "We've worked together for a very long time. My wife would kill me." He paused. "Come to think of it, if I ever cheated, Cris would kill me too."

Kylo pulled himself back to his surroundings. He was still recovering from the images he had just witnessed. A knock came on the outside of the refresher.

Kylo looked around, and Luke had disappeared. He threw open the door to be met with Cris standing there.

She cleared her throat. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but I have an update."

Kylo nodded.

"Your wife has suffered some internal damage. She's stable for now, but we'll need to take her into surgery to repair it."

Kylo nodded again.

"I just need you to sign here to authorise the procedure," she said as she offered him the stylus and turned the holopad to face him.

Kylo signed the screen without reading it. Finding his voice again, he asked, "How long should it take?"

"It's hard to say. We won't know more until we get in there," she replied, observing his lip quiver. "Would you like me to notify anyone else that she's here? Another family member perhaps?"

"No, it's just us," he swallowed. "She's my only family." The realization struck him hard. She's all I have.

Cris nodded. "We'll do everything we can." She indicated to a hallway to her left. "There's a cafeteria down that way in case your hungry. You'll be waiting a while."

He exhaled and nodded. "Thank-you," he whispered.

She gave him a sympathetic look. "You're welcome," she said before swiftly disappearing around the corner and out of sight.

Kylo ran his hands through his hair and closed his eyes. He could sense Rey's signature in the distance. He was terrified to go into the operating theater with her. The picture of her lifeless form would haunt him for the rest of his life. He didn't want to add any other images that could torment him.

He pulled a communicator out of his pocket. "General?" he growled into the receiver.

"Yes, my lord?" came Hux's reply.

"Wait thirty minutes and move the fleet into the airspace above Naboo," he directed.

He had no doubt that the other pilot would have returned to Rori by now. He couldn't have the Resistance coming and searching for Rey anytime soon.

"Yes, my lord. Is the Empress okay?" Hux inquired.

"Don't pretend you care," Kylo snarled. "She'll be fine." She better be okay. "My presence is required here for a while," he explained. "I need my schedule cleared for the remainder of the day."

"Certainly, my lord," Hux replied.

Kylo realised that Hux was being too agreeable, but he didn't really care. Right now, his thoughts were with the only person that mattered to him. Kylo would deal with the First Order and Hux later.

It had been nearly four hours since Rey went into surgery. Kylo was pacing back and forth, unable to sit still. He attempted to meditate but found it difficult to calm his mind.

In the meantime, he focused on organising Rey's security and envisioning their future together. It was a way for him to maintain control in the face of the difficult situation.

Kylo made sure that no one else was allowed to visit Rey and arranged for her to be transferred to a private wing as soon as possible. The hospital's director had informed the staff about Kylo and Rey's significance.

Not many people in the galaxy recognised his face. He was more identified by his mask and his assumed name. He had been keeping an eye on the holonet in case his presence had been leaked to the press. Thankfully, nothing had been broadcast so far.

He was surprised that the hospital had kept everything confidential. He silently vowed to make sure they would receive a sizable donation when all of this was over. He was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't realize Cris had returned. She had been attempting to get his attention.

She stepped into his path. "Lord Ren?"

"How is she?" Kylo answered. He automatically halted to a stop.

Cris beamed at him. "You'll be pleased to know she's in recovery now. She's still asleep, but the surgery was a success. If you'll please follow me, I'll take you to her."

Once she had led him to the room and taken him inside, she turned to face him. "We'll give you a moment, but if you need anything, we're just outside," she explained. "When you're ready, Dr. Stephens would like to go over his plans for her recovery."

Kylo couldn't tear his eyes away from Rey. "Yes, of course," he responded.

The male nurse from earlier had been standing beside Rey. They both bowed before leaving the room.

Kylo noticed that the hospital workers had thoroughly cleaned Rey up. She was no longer covered in blood like the last time he saw her. She looked like an angel. She was still hooked up to a heart monitor, but she was now dressed in a white hospital gown and had a white blanket draped over her.

It was drawn up under her bust, and a bandage was just visible below. Her head was wrapped as well. Her hair was flowing freely down to her shoulders. It was slightly damp. He crossed the space between them and sat on a stool beside her bed.

He held her hand tightly and let out a sigh. "You scared me," he said softly. "I hope you know that."

He focused on the steady beat of her heart and checked the IV line that connected her to a saline bag on her other hand. "While you were fighting for your life..." His words trailed off. He closed his eyes and took a shaky breath.

"I, uh... I saw Skywalker," he confessed to her. He furrowed his brow. "He actually helped me," he said with a scoff. "Imagine that."

He bit the inside of his cheek nervously as he watched her face. "I can't lose you," he confessed, dropping his head. "I need you." He tried to hold back his tears. "I really do," he whispered, bringing her hand to his lips and tenderly kissing the back of it.

"Just come back to me," he sniffed. "Please." He scooted closer and stroked the side of her face. "I'm not strong enough to live in a galaxy where you don't exist," he said, sealing his eyes shut and shaking his head. I can't think like this. She's going to be fine.

He decided that he needed to take a walk. "I need to go see the doctor, but I'll be back as soon as I can," he promised. He kissed her hand again, stood up, and left the room to go and see Dr. Stephens.

After Rey woke up, she tried to get out of bed, but Cris gently guided her back down. "Just relax, Lady Ren. You're in the hospital," Cris said.

"Lady Ren?" Rey groaned in confusion.

Author's Note: By the way, the flatline was for drama only and is not medically accurate.