Archive of Our Own ^beta

The first thing that crosses Merrin’s mind when she teleports down from the Mantis is that the water of Nur is shockingly cold against her skin. On Dathomir, the nearest ocean was not warm, but this water feels like ice is being absorbed into her skin. The shock of it is almost enough to drive the breath from her lungs and make her gasp, but Merrin resists the urge to expel precious air. Only a few seconds into her swim and her muscles are threatening to seize up on her. Still, she presses onward--or, more accurately, downward , towards the fortress that Cal and Cere have infiltrated.

While this is a variation of one agreed-upon contingency plan for their retrieval, Merrin does not understand exactly what prompted her to execute it early, without Cal or Cere’s request for pickup. All she knows is that something had niggled at her from the back of her mind, prompting her to tell the Lateron to bring the Stinger Mantis into the atmosphere. The closer they got, the more pressing that feeling became until, abruptly and without warning, it roared to the forefront of her mind. Merrin had barely even heard the pilot’s exclamations of protest as she gathered her magick around her and disappeared from the cockpit in a swirl of green energy.

And her timing is paying off. Just below her are two blobs, which quickly resolve themselves into Cal and Cere. Both float there lifelessly. They are unconscious, and when in water, being unconscious is deadly.

One last powerful kick and Merrin is directly in front of them. She wraps one hand around a strap to Cal’s leather vest and the other around a fistful of Cere’s shirt. They cannot afford to tarry, so Merrin doesn’t even bother swimming for the surface. Instead, she closes her eyes, focuses her magick, and when she opens them, they are back on board the Mantis.

“Greez, we must leave this place immediately!”

The Latero whips around, stunned to see the three of them back on board when the Nightsister had teleported out of his cockpit less than a minute earlier. When he sees their other two companions, though, his eyes widen and he spins the chair around again. “On it! Making the jump to hyperspace...now!”

There’s a jolt as the ship jumps forward into the blue tunnel of hyperspace from inside the atmosphere, but Merrin pays it no mind. Instead, she turns her attention to the two people she just pulled from the water. Cere begins to stir, and opens her eyes.

“Merrin,” she coughs, pausing for a moment to clear her airways, before asking, “what happened?”

“I do not know,” Merrin replies shortly. With Cere awake, she turns her attention to Cal instead. Unlike Cere, he is showing no signs of regaining consciousness. And, more alarmingly, he is not breathing.

Merrin wastes no time. Emotions will have to come later. She reaches back through the years, back to the lessons her mother taught her, and touches two fingers to Cal’s neck. His skin is like ice. She focuses, praying that it is just the cold that has numbed her fingers so...but it is not so. Cal has no heartbeat. 

Merrin’s own heart plummets. But they have not come this far, only to lose him now, at the end of this journey. Cere knows this, too, and she moves forward, bracing her hands against Cal’s still chest, and pushes down hard. She does this numerous times before sitting back, and Merrin moves in. She leans down, pinching his nose shut with two fingers, before sealing her mouth over his and praying this will work.

One breath, then two, then three...still nothing. Merrin comes up, takes in a deep lungful of air, and dives back down and repeats the process. Four, five, six…

Breathe, she wills him, Please breathe, Cal Kestis.

Over and over, this process repeats. Merrin loses track of how many times they do this. Distantly, she hears Cere mutter something about minutes; the longer this goes on, the less likely it is that Cal can be saved, and remain himself. 

But Merrin can’t stop. Not now, and maybe not ever.

And then, just when the last ounce of hope is fading away, their efforts pay off. Cal draws in a shallow breath, and then he begins to cough. His coughs are weak at first, then they begin to grow in intensity as his body fights to expel the seawater from his lungs.

“Turn him on his side,” Cere orders, and they work together to roll him. Water continues to pour from his mouth and nose, but Merrin is surprised to see a small gush of fluid coming from the vicinity of his chest as well. Alarmed, she tracks it upwards to its source: the hole in Cal’s vest and likely, in his chest.

Cere sees it, too. “Help me get this thing off of him,” she orders, reaching for the straps that hold the leather in place. Merrin helps her, struggling slightly with the wet leather. Finally, they succeed, the leather is flung away, and that is when the smell hits her. Burnt flesh. For a moment, Merrin is transported back to her childhood. She is on Dathomir, and hiding behind the rocks as her mother and sisters are cut down with swords of pure light. Of everything she experienced that day, it is the stench that lingers with her the most.

Beep-beep!

The sound of BD-1’s alarm is what brings her out of these memories. The little droid clambers over Cal’s shoulders from his spot on the floor where he had crouched during the rescue and resuscitation. A panel on the top of his main body pops open, revealing two vials of green liquid. Merrin has no idea what they are, but Cere acts quickly, lunging forward to catch them as the droid ejects them into the air. She primes both vials, revealing their needles, before plunging the first of them directly into the wound in Cal’s chest. The second she puts down, rolling him further towards her and pulling his shirt away from his back. Both women grimace when they see the matching exit wound, but Cere shakes it off, and empties the second vial.

“What--aw, shit. What the hell happened!?”

Cere’s gaze flicks upwards to their pilot before she refocuses on the prone young man before her. “Hell happened,” she responds tersely, reaching forward and trying to further assess the injury. Greez gulps when he gets a glimpse of the wound, but Cere jolts him out of his stupor. “Greez, get the med kit!”

Greez rushes to comply. Merrin and Cere work at pulling the young Jedi’s shirt away from his chest completely, succeeding in getting it open just as Greez reappears, med kit in hand. Merrin glances at it, but she has no experience with such things, and no idea what most of the items inside the box are. Cere does, though. The tweezers are the first thing her fingers encounter, and she uses them to remove as many of the singed fibers of Cal’s shirt as she can. She quickly sprays the wound down with disinfectant, before covering it with the strongest bacta patches she can find in their meager supplies.

Throughout all of this, Cal remains unresponsive, although he continues to emit weak little coughs to expel yet more seawater. A thought pops into Cere’s head. It won’t be enough . As much as she wishes they could paper this one over with stims and bacta patches, Cere knows that lightsaber wounds are notoriously difficult to heal. Cal’s lightsaber has penetrated his chest to exit out his back and, if she’s not mistaken, it likely perforated a lung that was then flooded with seawater.

“We must get him dry and warm,” Merrin decides. The two women share a glance and Cere knows they are on the same page on this at least when the Nightsister continues, “to give him the best chance.”

Cere nods, her mind already racing ahead to what their next step would be. That will buy them time, but not enough of it. His heart has already stopped once, and Cal needs real medical care. But it isn’t like they can just take him to the nearest hospital--a lightsaber stab wound is too distinctive, and it will garner too many questions they couldn’t answer. A quick rundown of her few contacts leaves Cere grimacing--none of them will be able to help. That leaves them only one option.

“Greez, help Merrin look after Cal,” Cere’s tone leaves no room for argument; she’s come to a decision. “I’ll try to reach out to Saw Gerrera.”

“Saw Gerrera, the freedom fighter? Ain’t he just a little--”

But Cere is already moving towards the cockpit. “He’s more than ‘just a little.’ But the Partisans are the only ones we can trust with this type of injury.”

And there really is no arguing with that, not with the Empire breathing down their necks, Greez has to concede. And so, with a sigh, he turns his attention to Cal’s right glove and begins to work.

Across from him, Merrin is doing exactly the same thing with the Jedi’s left glove. The leather is slick and swollen with water, making it difficult to remove. She has to work it off slowly, inch by inch, until it finally releases its grip on Cal’s hand and forearm. It finally comes free with a wet squelch , and Merrin moves to toss it aside. When she does, she gasps. Distantly, it comes to her that she has never seen Cal’s left hand before--he has never removed his glove in her presence. She had not even thought to question it at the time but now, his apparent reluctance to bear it to her makes sense.

Where Merrin was expecting pale flesh and bone, she instead finds solid durasteel. Everything from just above Cal’s wrist down is made of dull gray metal, shaped in the approximation of a human hand and fingers. A quick glance up at his forearm reveals that the skin there has been twisted and warped by burns of some kind. Some are slightly raised while others have flattened over time; they’re a shade paler than his already-pale skin tone, and disappear into a thin, but solid steel cuff that appears to secure the metal apparatus to the rest of his arm.

Merrin does not usually think of herself as a kind, emotional person. But in this moment, her heart goes out to the red-headed Jedi. This boy, this man, carries so many scars already, and it’s not fair that he’s just added another one to his collection. Perhaps someday, he will tell her the story behind these scars...assuming he survives his current injury, that is.

“Hey! Hey! Merrin!”

Greez’s voice penetrates the fog that has momentarily clouded her brain, and Merrin shakes herself out of it. When she looks up, Greez is looking at her with an expression that she thinks is equal parts fear, impatience, and understanding.

“I’m sorry, I shoulda warned you about that.” Greez gestures to Cal’s metal hand. “But we gotta keep working, we ain’t even half done here.”

Yes. Yes, they have to keep working. With that, Merrin pushes the thought of Cal’s scars--yes, there are more of them--to the back of her mind and turns her attention back to his wet clothing. Thankfully, none of it is as difficult to remove as the glove, and they have him stripped down in short order. Cal is beginning to shiver, which is promising--it means his body is working to preserve warmth. Greez disappears momentarily, reappearing with a multitude of towels, blankets and fresh clothes. Getting Cal into the clothes is easier than getting him out of them--these are soft sleep clothes, not his usual scrapper’s gear, and they’re dry. And as for layers, well, that’s what the blankets are for.

Up in the cockpit, Cere’s work at the comm console is also beginning to produce results. After what seemed like ages of searching and waiting, she had finally reached one of Saw’s comms officers, now based in a sector of the grid she was unfamiliar with and had never heard of. It had taken some time to impress upon the woman the importance of what she had to convey to the Partisan leader, but it seems her work has paid off. Now all she can do is wait as the comms officer works to patch her through to Saw Gerrera.

“Cere Junda,” he greets her when the call finally connects. “My soldier tells me this message is urgent. What move has the Empire made?”

Cere shakes her head. Of course Saw would assume that was the case--it was all the man ever thought about. “The Empire stole dangerous information of Jedi origin,” she informs him, deliberately omitting the details. The fewer people who know, the better, and Saw Gerrera is one of the last people she wants to know about the now-forever-anonymous would-be-Jedi children (she refuses to think on the implications of that). “So we brought the fight to them . Our mission to retrieve and destroy the information was successful, but Cal is wounded.” Taking a deep breath, Cere braces herself, then adds, “By a lightsaber. Given the nature of this injury, there are few we can trust. We need your help.”

Saw regards her for a moment. Cere has a feeling this man gives away nothing for free, but she hopes her assertion that they attacked the Empire will earn them some points. So she waits with bated breath...and has to refrain from sighing in relief when Saw finally responds.

“Give me your coordinates.”

Cere gives him that information readily enough, trying not to sound as desperate as she is. The Jedi may have eschewed attachment, but she hasn’t been a Jedi in a long time. The idea of that young man dying back there, because of a quest she convinced him to undertake, is almost more than she can bear.

Saw studies the coordinates for a moment, before looking back up at the camera. At long last, he says, “I believe we can help each other.”

Help each other? Cere knows that the Partisan leader is unlikely to give away anything for free, but they’re not exactly in good enough shape to go back into battle. What does Saw need from them? She sits forward, wordlessly inviting him to continue.

“I have an outpost on a small moon only a few hours’ hyperspace journey from your current coordinates,” Saw continues, pulling up a map. He zooms in on a tiny moon, one of three that appear to be orbiting a mid-size planet of indeterminate climate. He taps on a sector of land, pulling up coordinates from somewhere in the middle of a forest. Cere immediately notes them down. “The Empire is bearing down on this outpost, and my soldiers cannot hold it. The transport ship will not be able to return in time. If the Mantis can evacuate them, you can utilize the medics and supplies the group has with them.”

Well, at least that had the potential of not being the battle that Cere feared. But the Mantis wasn’t that large. “How many people?”

“No more than fifteen. Take this mission, and I will communicate the plans to the team on the ground.”

And it wasn’t like they were going to get a better offer than that. Cere’s decision is made. “We’ll take it.”

“Then may the Force be with you.”

The call ends, and Cere makes her way back to the lounge area. Cal is now clothed in soft sleepwear and covered in blankets, and a pile of wet clothes and sodden towels now sits off to the side. Greez reaches for it, but Cere stops him. He and Merrin look up, while Cal remains just as unconscious as he was when she left them.

“Captain, we’ve got coordinates. I’ve left them on the nav-computer. We’re rescuing a group of Saw’s rebels from an outpost they’re abandoning in exchange for using their medics and supplies. Merrin, are you up for one more round of cloaking?”

Though she looks a little worn to Cere’s eyes, Merrin nods. Nur had taken a lot out of her, but she has enough left for one more round, before her power is spent for the time being.

“Alright then. Greez?”

But the Captain is already making his way towards the cockpit. “You got it. One rescue, coming right up. But, uh…” he glances back, gaze lingering on Cal’s prone form. He looks up at Cere and jerks his thumb towards the unconscious Jedi. “Can you help get him comfortable? I don’t like the thought of him just laying there…”

“We’ll look after him Greez. Just get us to those coordinates.”

Greez disappears, and Cere turns back to Cal and Merrin. While Cal is taller than both of them, it isn’t by much, and he’s lean. The two of them are certainly capable of carrying him back to his rack, but should they? It’s near the engine compartment at the back of the ship, but Cere would rather keep him out here, where it’s easier to keep an eye on him. She sees Merrin glance towards Greez’s prized couch and her decision is made.

“Let’s move him onto the couch for now. Here, I’ll take his legs.”

Merrin reaches underneath Cal’s arms and together the two of them move the unconscious Jedi on to the soft seating. His left arm dangles off the side and Merrin reaches to pick it up. When she places it back on his chest, Cal finally has the first reaction she’s seen from him since grabbing him in the water. His brow wrinkles and he makes a small noise of discomfort. His eyes open, revealing bloodshot green orbs clouded over with pain, and one hand comes up to instinctively reach for the wound. Merrin catches it, preventing him from causing himself more harm.

Cal blinks, and his unfocused gaze drifts upwards to meet hers. “Mer’in,” he murmurs, though his voice is raspy from the sea water, the coughing, and the strangulation bruises Merrin had noted while they dried him off. His eyes drift downward. “Cere…”

Cere lays a hand on his shin. “I’m here, Cal.”

Cal shifts slightly, biting back a moan as the movement causes agony to lance through his wounded body. Again, he tries to reach for the area in his chest that is causing him so much pain, and Merrin tightens her grip on his hand to prevent it. Darkness dances at the edge of his vision. Still, he licks his lips and perseveres, asking the final part of his question:

“‘Cron?”

The holocron. The reason behind all this suffering. Cere looks to Merrin, fearing suddenly that it was lost to the ocean, but Merrin nods. She retrieved it from his water-logged poncho when she and Greez were undressing Cal. “We have it, Cal. It is safe.”

At that, the injured Jedi sags back into the couch. “Sssafe,” he slurs. His fingers tighten briefly around Merrin’s; she’s uncertain if he does it deliberately, from relief or pain, or if it’s just a reflex, in response to the pressure she has unconsciously exerted on his hand. She’s not even certain if he can feel her grip, given that this is his left hand she’s holding. And it’s a moot point, as his eyes slide shut and his body loses some (but not all) of the tension it had built since waking all of thirty seconds earlier.

Merrin regards him for a moment, waiting to see if he’ll open his eyes again. When Cal remains unconscious, she looks up at Cere. “At least we know he can awaken.”

Cere nods. “Yes. He has a chance.”

But, as the hours pass, all three crew members begin to fear that it’s not much of a chance. Cal does not awaken again, and his condition begins to deteriorate. His breathing does not improve--in fact, it gets worse. When Merrin lays her hand against his chest and leans in close to listen to his lungs, their fears about the damage to his left lung are confirmed. Only the right side of his chest rises and falls whenever he sucks in a hard-won breath, and there’s an ominous rattle in both of his lungs; not all of the seawater has been expelled. His skin, now paler than usual, is cold and clammy, but his face is flushed with fever. When she pulls back the bacta patch on his front, what she sees is enough to call Cere back to the lounge.

Cere grimaces as she gets her second look at Cal’s stab wound. Only a handful of hours have passed since they departed Nur, but it already looks worse than it did when she first saw it. The heat of the lightsaber cauterized the tissue, but that tissue is now dead, and the living tissue around it, already burnt, is beginning to react. The edges of the wound are red, inflamed and beginning to ooze. When she turns the young Jedi to check his exit wound, she finds it to be much the same, if not worse. While seawater itself could be cleansing, who knew what the Empire had polluted it with. And they have no way of knowing what debris from the shattered hallway might have been driven into Cal’s wound from the force of said water flooding in.

When Cere straightens up from her examination, Merrin is watching her. While her expression is blank, her eyes reveal her worry and fear for the young Jedi lying prone in front of them. “How long until we reach these Partisans?”

Cere opens her mouth to answer, but never gets that far. Instead, it is Greez’s voice they hear over the Mantis’s public address system, and the message he delivers is the one they’ve been waiting for.

“Closing in on the moon! Exiting hyperspace in one minute.”

Relief dawning over her features, Cere dashes back to the cockpit and Merrin braces both herself and Cal on the couch. With one hand on his shoulder and her feet braced against the floor, Merrin uses her free hand to hold her talisman on her lap and, closing her eyes, begins to chant once again:

“Sisters, Mother...lend me your strength. Sisters...Mother... lend me your strength!”

Although she cannot see it, Merrin feels the moment that her magick pulses outwards, enveloping the ship in an invisible cloak just as it exits hyperspace, and she knows help is only a few minutes away. The ship begins to shudder and jolt as it enters the atmosphere, but the turbulence passes quickly, and then they are flying again, supported and willed on by the wind and the Force. Through the hallway that leads to the cockpit, Merrin can hear a distant murmur in another language, as Cere communicates with the group she calls the Partisans. Still, Merrin never opens her eyes, focusing instead on maintaining her spell, until she hears Greez’s voice on the PA once more.

“Landing in thirty seconds...”

That announcement is the signal they had worked out hours earlier. Although they are trusting these Partisans to treat Cal’s injury, Cere has no idea how they might react to a Nightsister, especially if they have to board a ship they cannot see. Therefore, Merrin opens her eyes and the ship shimmers as the last of her magic falls away from it. She does not feel the jolt as the landing gear makes contact with the ground. Nearly spent, she sags back against the couch and fights to keep the world before her steady as it lurches and threatens to fade at the edges. At least Cere has already lent her some clothes and her markings, while distinct, do not link her to the Nightsisters, as few people living have ever seen one. And that is for the best right now; until she can replenish her magick, Merrin has to ration what she has, and save the last bit of it for the trip out.

It seems that she closes her eyes again for just a moment, but when Merrin opens them again, she can see a glimpse of greenery through the open hatch. There are voices outside. A part of her yearns to go out, to plant her feet on the ground and get a breath of fresh air, but she knows they do not have the time. So she settles instead for breathing deeply, absorbing what strength she can from the energy of the planet that lingers in the air.

Cere appears again, and this time, there is a whole group of people behind her. Some are human, and there is one Zabrak accompanied by a droid, but Merrin has no idea what the others are. Her crew will have to teach her sometime, but that time is not now.

“This is the Jedi?” says the Zabrak, gesturing to the unconscious redhead on the couch beside Merrin. Presumably, this is the medic they have all been waiting on.

Cere nods. “Yes. Merrin, give him some room to work.” She clears her throat. “And why don’t you go have a lie-down. You’re not looking so good yourself.”

And this is the other code they worked out, to ensure safe passage offworld while not exposing Merrin to the group before them. She nods, then, reluctantly abandoning her place beside Cal. She does not look back, and instead, makes her way towards the cramped room given to her only weeks before. It will grant her privacy, and immediate access to a bed, which she will need as soon as this ritual is done. As soon as the door shuts, Merrin sits down on the bed, and repeats the ritual for the third time today.

“Sisters...Mother...lend me your strength…”

But up in the lounge, Merrin’s cloaking spell is the farthest thing from anyone’s mind, or at least the minds of those who know about it. Various resistance fighters have already settled themselves throughout the open space. Anything not bolted down is already gone, moved down to the cargo hold while they were still in hyperspace, but the lounge still seems considerably smaller. Some of the fighters scattered around it look a little more worse for wear than others, but none look as bad as the still-unconscious Jedi lying motionless on the couch. 

They haven’t even made it to hyperspace yet, and the medic is already shaking his head as he lowers his medscanner and peels back the first bacta patch with gloved hands. The angry, swollen, cauterized flesh glares up at them, and the medic curses under his breath. He looked up at Cere.

“This kid needs surgery. I need to debride and clean out the wound, then repair the lung. I can do it as soon as you sanitize that dining table.”

“I was expecting that, it’s already done.”

“Then do it again anyway. It’s already getting infected, and I don’t want to risk anything worse than what we got.”

The medic’s tone brooks no argument, and Cere hurries to comply. In short order, the table is wiped down once more and the medic and the droid--a med-droid--carry their patient over. Cere cuts away his shirt at their behest as they set up and re-sterilize their tools and equipment. Then the med-droid comes forward, more equipment and a vial full of an unknown substance in hand.

“We will begin operating now. Please step away, and we will notify you upon completion.”

And Cere knows she does not want to see--or hear, or smell--what comes next. She steps away. And all she can do is wait.

Time passes. Cere doesn’t know exactly how much time--Greez probably does, he’s still up in the cockpit, trying to avoid the scene taking place on his dining table--and BD-1 would surely tell her if she asked. She doesn’t ask, though. She doesn’t need to be reminded of the minutes that are surely crawling by. Instead, Cere busies herself checking on the other Partisans, patching up their wounds, and monitoring the very silent comms station, all while doing her very best to avoid looking at, or listening to, anyone near the table.

At some point, Merrin reappears, having rested for hours in her cramped bunk. She is by no means fully rejuvenated--only a rest on a planet will do that--but at least she no longer feels as if she is about to keel over. And she has timed her appearance well. Up at the table, at which one soldier kindly tells her not to look too close, both the medic and the droid he brought onboard appear to be wrapping up. The droid moves to the other side of the table, taking over the medic’s position between Cal and the rest of the room while the medic peels off his gloves. Bloody, Merrin notes, and averts her gaze from what little she can see of Cal on the table. She is no weakling, but the nightmare of the murder of her mother and sisters has replayed itself multiple times over the past few hours. She does not wish to give her mind any more fodder, not today.

Instead, Merrin focuses on the approaching medic, and Cere does, too. Even Greez must hear the change in position, because he too wanders back from the cockpit to listen in.

The medic doesn’t bother with any pleasantries. “The surgery went well, considering we didn’t have much to work with. 2-1A is cleaning him up,” he gestures back to where the droid does, indeed, appear to be cleaning up after the operation. “We got it in time. The drain and chest tube can come out in a few hours. We’ve got the time before we land. Ideally, I’d like to monitor him for several days but we’re being deployed to a cold world. Unless you run the heaters onboard constantly, we can’t risk keeping him there, not in his current condition.”

Cere shakes her head. She prods, “And the rest of his prognosis?”

The medic blows out a breath, possibly from exhaustion. “Your friend’s not gonna be up and running at full steam for several weeks. From what I remember from the Clone Wars, lightsaber wounds are no joke and the tissue will take time to heal. He sounds like he might be developing a case of pneumonia from the water in his lungs in addition to the current infection, so I’ll spare you some antibiotics. I repaired the lung and applied a bone knitter to his ribs. Coughing is gonna be hell for awhile, but he’s gotta cough to keep his lungs clear.”

Cere grimaces. Coughing is indeed hell on broken ribs and an injured lung, but there’s nothing for it--it has to be done. “How long are we talking?”

“At least three, maybe four weeks. He’s young and fit, it may be less,” the medic pauses and clears his throat. “But he has to be careful. No getting into any funny business, of any kind, for at least that long.”

Merrin wonders why he eyes her when he says this. Cere clears her throat and Merrin looks at her strangely, the double entendre having gone right over her head. But the medic brings them back.

“We can move him back to the couch. I’ve gotta look over the rest of these people, 2-1A will go over the post-surgical care.”

Now that the worst is over, both Merrin and Cere step forward to help. Cal is still unconscious, with a black mask strapped to his face, and Cere does her best to shove the monster who did this to him out of her mind. Already lean from scraping by in the scrapyard they’d found him in, Cal’s current situation and near-total lack of movement makes him seem even smaller.

Merrin, too, is taking note of the young Jedi’s appearance as she positions herself to help move him back to the couch. Moving Cal and now the apparatus he’s connected to is a four-person job. The droid reaches down and Merrin represses a shudder when she sees the tubes shoved into Cal’s side and draining blood-tinged fluid into a canister below. But he is breathing easier than he did before the surgery--both sides of his chest are rising and falling, if not quite evenly. And his color has improved some. He is beginning to shiver, though, and Merrin piles on the blankets as soon as they’ve laid him back on the couch.

The rest of the night cycle passes much more smoothly than the first half did. The medic begins looking over his other injured comrades, whom he had initially bypassed to treat the more critically wounded Jedi. Now that she knows said Jedi will be alright, Cere gives in to the desire to rest, and retreats to her quarters. Of their small crew, only Merrin remains on the couch. It makes sense, she tells herself; Cal will wake up eventually and when he does, someone will have to explain it to him, and explain it very carefully.

And Merrin’s vigilance pays off.

They are halfway through the ship’s night cycle, and still have several hours to go until they reach their destination, when Cal begins to stir. The black mask has since been removed and a softer, clear version has replaced it, gently blowing oxygen and a fine bacta mist into his airways. Confused, and uncertain of what this contraption is on his face, he reaches for it but a hand stops him.

“You must leave that on, Cal, it is helping you breathe.”

Cal’s brow furrows, eyes drifting shut when he doesn’t even remember opening them in the first place. His mind is foggy with medication-infused exhaustion, and it takes him several tries to process the words, and the meaning behind them. Helping him breathe...when the last thing he remembers is not being able to breathe at all.

Merrin does not relinquish her hold on Cal’s hand, as this happens several more times over the next half-hour. Every time he opens his eyes, they never stay open for more than a few seconds. Finally, though, over forty minutes after he first began to stir, Cal opens his eyes once more, and this time, they stay open.

Merrin leans in closer. “Cal? Are you awake?”

Cal’s gaze, clouded with medication and discomfort, wanders for a few moments before finally landing on her. He squints, attempting to focus in the dim lighting of the night cycle, before finally recognizing the hazy figure before him.

“Merrin?”

She nods. “It is me, Cal. How are you feeling?”

He ponders the question longer than he feels he ought to. There is pain, yes, but it feels distant. Unimportant. Beyond that, he’s not really sure. So he lifts his shoulder in a shrug--something tells him to use the right one only--as best he can in his current position. “Sore.”

“The medic says you will feel sore for some time. You were badly wounded, Cal.”

At that, Cal’s mind drifts back, searching through murky memories to find the source of his current predicament. He recalls a fortress, deep under the ocean, a place of pain and torture...Trilla Suduri’s last cry, Avenge us! ...a dark shadow, terrifying and stronger than anything he’s ever encountered, fingers wrapping around his throat...and sudden, blazing, white-hot agony as invisible hands drove his own lightsaber into his chest.

With that particular memory restored, the pain fights to make itself known through the haze of medication, and Cal flinches, his breath coming short and harsh. Before Merrin can stop him, his free hand comes up, finding the section in his chest where the dark shadow ran him through with his own blade. Instead of a hole, though, Cal encounters only a clean bandage and, somewhat alarmingly, two tubes emerging from between his ribs.

Merrin acts fast--she is not sure what pulling the tubes out will do, but she is sure it won’t be good. It will cause him more harm. So she grabs his questing hand in her free one, squeezing hard to bring him back to the present.

(Back to her), her mind whispers traitorously, but she pays it no attention.

“Breathe, Cal! They are there to help you. You are safe.”

Breathe. Yes. Cal sucks in a breath, and reaches into the Force to release the pain. Dimly, he is aware of Merrin coaching him through this process, and breathing with him. Unconsciously, his breathing begins to sync with hers.

Once the pain has receded to a manageable level once more, Cal relaxes back into--the couch, he realizes, not his bunk at the rear of the Mantis . Once she sees he is calm once more, Merrin relinquishes her grip on his hands. Although he is not sure why, Cal mourns the loss and instead searches for something else to ground himself with. Coming up blank, he returns his attention to the Nightsister hovering before him, and searches for something to say.

“That was you who pulled us out of the water...wasn’t it?”

Surprised that he even remembers that, Merrin nods. “I did not realize you remember that part…”

“I don’t...not really. But there was no one else who could have…” Cal’s eyes widen. “BD, Cere?!”

“Peace, Cal. They are fine, they are just resting.”

Cal exhales, the knot of worry dissipating under his breastbone. “Thank the Force...what about the--”

They can’t talk about that. Not right now. Merrin leans forward, dropping her voice so that only Cal can hear her. “You succeeded, Cal. But you must mind what you say--we are not alone here.”

At that, Cal frowns, and for the first time, he takes in the war-weary fighters surrounding them. Most are sleeping, but a few glance over. Some quickly look away, but others take no pains to hide their curiosity. In the face of their scrutiny, Cal feels naked, exposed, and he unconsciously draws back.

“Who are they?”

Merrin quirks an eyebrow. “You do not recognize your Partisans?”

Cal shakes his head. “They’re...not mine. They’re Saw Guerrera’s...he’s their leader. I’ve never met these people. How did…?”

Merrin is surprised; she had thought Cere would only trust people they knew personally with her badly injured comrade. She does not know the size of this group, these Partisans. There is much she does not know about the universe, she is discovering. Cal had already begun to teach her before their arrival at Nur. Perhaps he will teach her more, once he is recovered. But that is a thought for another day.

“Cere reached out to them, when it became clear we could not give you the aid you needed. We are transporting them to their next location in return. The Empire overran their previous one.”

Of course it did. The cruelty of the Empire knows no bounds. But at least the holocron is safe...for now. And with all these strangers surrounding them, there is nothing Cal can do about it. He needs to do something, though. While he is exhausted, and what little energy he has is fading fast, he’s not quite at the point where he thinks he can go back to sleep. And as for a healing trance...forget it. There is no way he is entering any sort of trance surrounded by so many people he doesn’t know. So he casts about for something else, something he can do that’s useful and not strenuous, and finally lands on something.

“Hey Merrin?”

“Yes?”

“Can you bring me a datapad? There’s one under the console.”

“For what reason?” Merrin questions suspiciously. He has only just awoken, he cannot possibly be thinking of working…

Thankfully, he is not. Quietly, Cal admits, “I...can’t sleep just yet. And I just thought…”

He trails off, and Merrin waits patiently for him to finish his thought. Cal glances up at her and, if she’s not mistaken, a faint dusting of pink blooms across his too-pale cheeks. “I figured...you don’t speak binary...so I thought...maybe I can teach you?”

At that, Merrin cannot help the small smile that graces her features. Trust Cal to be thinking of someone else when he is the one lying prone. Perhaps he read her mind when she thought of him teaching her more about the galaxy--she knows some Jedi have that ability, although Cal has never said he does. Regardless, it does not matter.

“Yes, Cal Kestis. I would like that very much.”

Merrin fetches the datapad, and Cal shows her how to turn it on low so as not to disturb the sleeping soldiers. Of course, he doesn’t last very long--his injury is severe, and he only recently came out of surgery, after all. He lasts maybe twenty minutes before the need to rest becomes too great, and Merrin stows the datapad away as his eyes flutter closed. Lacking anything else to do, she leans back against the couch, intending to resume her vigil. But despite her recent rest after departing the strange moon, the day has been a very, very long one, and she’s asleep before she’s even aware of closing her eyes.

But it feels as if she has closed them only for a moment before Merrin is roused once more, this time by movement before her. She blinks to clear the remnants of sleep before focusing on her surroundings. The numbers on the device on the adjacent wall--the chrono, Cal calls it--have changed, indicating that she’s been asleep for hours. 

It is the medic that has woken her as he settles down on his haunches in front of the couch, the med-droid taking up residence behind him. Beside her, Cal is awake once more, watching as the medic prepares his supplies.

Something in her posture must give her away, or perhaps he just senses the change in the atmosphere, but Cal tears his attention away from the medic and glances up at her.

“Hey,” he says softly.

This is...not a normal happenstance for her. Merrin has never once awoken beside someone, not since the massacre of her Sisters. She searches for something to say in response, and only comes up with, “Hey.”

Cal shifts in discomfort; whether it’s hers or his own, she cannot tell. “We’re about to drop out of hyperspace,” he informs her. “We’ll be landing soon.”

Merrin frowns. If her magick is needed… “You should have woken me.”

In response, Cal gives her a one-shouldered shrug, not at all repentant. “You looked like you needed it.”

Beside them, the medic scowls. “Quit fidgeting,” he orders the patient and a chastised Cal sheepishly complies. The medic has finished setting up his supplies and leans forward, pulling down the blanket and moving Cal’s left arm out of the way. Cal immediately tenses up and hisses, clenching his teeth and struggling not to give in to his immediate urge, which is to pull his arm back and shove the man across the room. He knows he’s not due for more painkillers yet, not that they have much to begin with, but still. It hurts .

“Breathe through it,” the medic advises him, familiar with this kind of reaction. He glances up at the strange Zabrak female beside him. “You, hold his arm up and out of the way. It’s time to take the tubes out.”

Swallowing back a sudden bout of nausea, Merrin does as she’s told. She even goes a step farther, pulling both of Cal’s hands up and behind his head, so he can’t inadvertently lash out during what is to come. If he uses the Force, though…

“Cal,” she says suddenly, drawing his attention. “You must focus on me. Breathe when I tell you to.”

Despite his pain, Cal nods. The medic gives her a strange look, but understanding dawns. This patient can lash out in more ways than one. He removes the bandage and cuts the stitches holding the tubes in place. Gripping the tubes in one hand and bracing the other against Cal’s chest, he instructs, “Deep breath in…”

Merrin demonstrates. Cal copies her to the extent he can, forcing himself not to tense up.

“...and out.”

They exhale, and Cal’s side burns as the tubing is pulled out of his body. He fights not to give into the pain and Merrin’s grip on his hands tightens in response. She leans in close. “Cal,” she calls to him, and he struggles to focus on her, “Breathe with me.”

He does.

In...out...in...out...and the pain begins to fade. He is not cognizant of the medic securing a fresh bandage in place, only of Merrin as she helps him center himself.

Once he is sure that the patient will not lash out, the medic clears his throat. The two people before him reluctantly tear their attention away from each other. He gestures to the now-covered incision site. “That’ll drain for a day or so. As long as it doesn’t drain more pus, you should be fine. You can put your arms down now.”

Merrin releases her grip and Cal moves to return his arms to his sides. His right one comes without issue, but his left threatens to seize up on the way back down, and he groans as the muscles surrounding his wound spasm in protest. The medic has to help him lower it the rest of the way, and he grimaces as the repositioning sends spikes of pain up and down his front and his back.

“Moving that arm is gonna hurt for awhile,” the medic advises him and Cal can’t disagree there. He pulls out a tangle of straps and fabric. “I don’t want to risk you tearing anything since I won’t be here to fix it, so I want you to keep this arm in a sling for a few days.”

Merrin reaches forward to help and together, the two manage to reposition and secure Cal’s left arm to prevent any excessive movement. He momentarily freezes, though, when he gets a glimpse of his left hand--he hadn’t realized his glove is missing. His prosthetic hand is exposed, which it almost never is unless it needs maintenance. And he hasn’t told Merrin about it. A quick glance at her, though, reveals nothing amiss in her expression as she positions his arm such that it doesn’t place direct pressure on his wound. Surely she--oh. Cal mentally kicks himself, flushing; of course she must have seen it when they were first undressing him. And she would not have held his hands--repeatedly--if she was uncomfortable with it...right?

A voice from the cockpit jolts them all out of their thoughts. “Dropping out of hyperspace in five, four, three, two...one!”

There’s a jolt as the ship drops back into realspace. Cal looks up at Merrin, frowning. “Won’t they need you…?” he asks, but he is careful not to finish his question. If they can’t tell these people about the holocron, they probably can’t tell them about the Nightsister, either.

Thankfully, Merrin understands what he is saying. “No,” she reassures him. “Cere is at her communication station, and there is no immediate threat.”

“Speaking of,” the medic interrupts them. Ministrations complete, he pats his patient’s arm and stands up. “This is my stop. Try to get up and moving a little today, and move that arm around a bit, but don’t overdo it. Don’t take it the wrong way, but I hope I don’t see you for awhile.”

“Likewise,” Cal responds dryly. “And...thank you.”

The medic shrugs. “Your crew hauled our asses out of an early grave. Least we could do.”

There’s a rumble as the ship enters the atmosphere of...wherever they’re going. Cal realizes he has no idea. Not far away, the med-droid is handing a small bag over to Merrin. Likely whatever supplies the group can spare, Cal realizes. These people don’t even know him, and they’re willing to help. He’s touched.

“Thank you,” he repeats. The medic simply nods, and walks away. The rest of the Partisans file after him. The ship shudders as it touches down on solid ground. Greez doesn’t even bother shutting down the engines, and Cal’s about to ask why when the ramp lowers and a blast of frigid air hits him from the outside. He shivers, pulling the blanket up higher, but there’s no need--the cold air dissipates as soon as the ramp closes again. It seems as if they’ve only barely left the ground before another familiar jolt comes once more, signalling that they’ve made the jump to hyperspace.

And he still has no idea where they’re going. Internally, Cal curses his current condition--under different circumstances, he would be up in the cockpit with them. As it is, the only thing he can do is lay here and hope someone remembers to come back and tell him.

Thankfully, he doesn’t have to wait long.  Once the ship is settled into hyperspace, all three of his crewmembers reappear. Merrin comes out last, but Greez immediately rushes over while Cere follows not far behind.

“Kid! It’s good to see you awake!”

Cal smiles as the Latero claps him gently on the shoulder. Greez, for all his gruff exterior, is a softy underneath, one whose heart is big enough for all his crew and then some. Therefore, Cal suppresses a wince of pain and neglects to tell him that he just clapped him over a massive bruise, and gives a small laugh instead. “It’s good to see you too, Greez.”

There’s an indignant beep, and then a weight lands on his legs and scrambles up to his lower abdomen. Cal tenses briefly, more bruises flaring at the contact, but then he relaxes. BD-1 appears in front of him, trilling indignantly and reminding Cal that his flesh-and-blood friends aren’t the only ones who have been waiting around for him to wake up. The little droid then gives his human companion a long diatribe about how droids worry, too, and how BD was afraid he would lose his first friend in many years. And Cal is his friend.

Said friend swallows once to avoid choking up at the unexpected surge of emotion. He’d nearly lost BD-1, too, when the brave little droid darted up the dark shadow’s shoulders and tried to electrocute him in order to save Cal himself. If he hadn’t done that when he did...Cal has to swallow again. He lays a shaking hand on the droid’s head, quieting the irritated beeps and trills, and croaks, “You too, BD.”

The droid quiets at that, but resolutely shoves his head further into Cal’s palm.

Then Cal looks at his third friend, the one who had seemingly returned from the dead in that underwater tunnel, who had saved him from her torturer and whom he, in turn, had saved from her own darkness. Softly, he says, “Hey.”

“Hey,” Cere replies, suddenly looking much more uncertain than she had just a moment ago. “How are you feeling?”

“Sore,” Cal tells her semi-truthfully. He’s actually a lot more than sore, but there’s no point in going into that. “How are you holding up?”

Cere doesn’t answer him immediately. In truth, she’s not sure. So many things happened down in that fortress...she’d regained and lost her Padawan, her Trilla, before confronting their shared nightmare...and the Darkness had taken her once more, but Cal’s words had pulled her back. But it wasn’t just Cal, those were her own words being given back to her, reminding her that wherever there was Darkness, there was still Light. And she’d tapped into the Light Side once more, something she had thought would never be possible again after the dark shadow broke her.

Some parts of her are still broken, yes, perhaps broken beyond repair...but the other parts of her, the parts that had begun to reawaken when she met a terrified teenager on Bracca, feel whole.

It takes Cere a moment to figure out how to answer. “I’m...doing alright, all things considered,” is what she settles on. It’s as good an answer as any.

“I’m glad,” he replies, a small smile gracing his features.

The group settles into an awkward silence after that, with no one really sure of what to say. Predictably, Greez is the one to break it, utilizing his favorite topic: food.

“Well, we’ve still got a lotta time before we get to Dantooine. You hungry, kid? I know you probably can’t eat much, but I know I’ve got my Grandma’s special noodle soup recipe around here somewhere…and I think we’ve got enough meiloorun to throw in there--”

“Actually,” Cal cuts in before the pilot can finish the thought about adulterating soup with fruit. In truth, he’s not sure he can stomach anything yet (much less fruit soup). But there is something they need to talk about. Now. “I...think I’ll pass on the soup for now, Greez, thanks. But what about the holocron?”

Merrin frowns. They’ve gone over this multiple times already, including once when Cal seemed to be awake and alert. Have the tonics the medic administered addled his brain? “It is safe, Cal,” she reminds him. “Cere has kept it safe in her room.”

Cal’s chest tightens, though he does his best to breathe through it. Everything they’ve gone through, all they’ve lost and gained...all because of one little cube made of glass, metal, and the Force. It weighs heavy now on his mind, and he knows for a fact that it will not let him rest. It also cuts through the haze of exhaustion that threatens to settle over his mind again, and gives him a small burst of adrenaline. Without even thinking about it, Cal shifts and tries to sit up, only to immediately sink back down as pain shoots through his battered body.

His friends cry out, jerking forward, and Cere reaches out to place a hand on his shoulder, gently pushing him back onto the cushions. No matter how much she knows they need to deal with the holocron, there is nothing they can do with it right now. Cal needs to heal, and she reminds him of this. “Cal, you just had surgery less than twelve standard hours ago. It can wait--”

“No.” It comes out sharper than he intended, pain and exhaustion coloring his words. “We need to deal with it. Just help me sit up.”

The rest of the crew looks entirely unconvinced. 

Cal softens slightly, hating to worry them, and adds, “Please.” His friends shift uncomfortably. Cal sighs, but his next words are laced with steel. “We need to deal with it.”

And now, with her connection to the Force being restored in a way she never thought it would be, Cere knows to the core of her being that he won’t be dissuaded. If they try, he’ll hurt himself trying to do it anyway. And...there’s no small part of her that wants to plan, to deal with what will come next. Whatever it may bring. “I’ll get it from my room. Wait here.”

Cere disappears, and Merrin turns her attention back to Cal. Her brow furrows. “Are you certain about this?” she questions him, and Cal knows she’s talking about more than just dealing with it when he’s fresh out of surgery. And no, he’s not ready, part of him will never be ready. But having experienced what he has these past few days, he knows what he needs to do. So he nods.

“I am.”

Sighing, Merrin relents and leans in closer. Cal starts momentarily as she envelopes him in what seems like a hug, then forces himself to relax, wrapping his arms around her as she sits back and brings him with her. His chest and back spasm at the change in position, and it takes him a moment to remember how to breathe. He can feel himself being maneuvered into a sitting position and closes his eyes, fighting back a wave of nausea. Cal takes a few moments to let the dizziness pass and when it does, he opens his eyes to find that he is now facing the lounge table, and Cere has reappeared in front of him. And in her hands, is the holocron.

She sets it down on the table, and for a long moment, they all stare at it, at this fragile cube of green glass and thin metal. It’s been the cause of so much hope, and so much suffering...and it holds the possibility of so much more.

As usual, Greez is the one to break the silence. “So now what?”

“Well, Captain,” Cere forces herself out of their reverie-like state and attempts to focus on the task at hand. She raises her eyes, meeting the gaze of the first person to be her friend in what felt like a lifetime. “This is the end of my charter. Your contract has been fulfilled,” Cere pauses, trying to figure out how to express the sheer magnitude of her gratitude. In the end, there are no words, in any language, that can communicate just how thankful she is, so she settles on, “ Thank you, Greez.”

Greez, on the other hand, is not ready to end things quite so soon. “Well, if it’s all the same to you,” he starts, moving to sit on the couch beside his crewmates, his friends. “I was thinking that maybe I would stick around here and...take you wherever you gotta go when you’re ready to leave Dantooine.”

Shifting carefully where he’s seated, Cal smiles. He, too, is not ready to let go of any member of his new family, Jedi Code be damned. And Greez picks up on this, continuing in a faux stage whisper, “Besides, uh, the kid kind of looks up to me.”

More than a little, Greez, Cal thinks, more like a lot.

But Merrin, in her usual blunt and non-nonsense manner, brings them back to the task at hand. The holocron is in front of them now, and Cal is right, they have to deal with it. “What about that?”

Everyone returns their attention to the innocent-looking cube that contains so much more than its appearance implies. “We use it,” Cere says, as if it were the most obvious thing in the galaxy. “To rebuild the Jedi Order.”

But even as he reaches for it, drawing from the Force to open the holocron and bathe them all in its soft blue light, Cal can hear the hesitation in her voice. He can feel it in the Force, and from the way she meets his gaze and looks away again, he knows she’s aware of it too. He knows she’s thinking of what happened to Trilla, and the younglings under their care, and herself when it all came crashing down. Cal knows he’ll never forget the echo of Trilla’s pain, an echo so strong that it reverberated up through his metal prosthetic and forced him to live it as if it were his own. And he will definitely never forget the vision he had in the vault, the future Merrin had warned him about...the one that will happen if he ever dares to pull those Force-sensitive children from their homes and into the crosshairs of the Galactic Empire.

Merrin is still staring at the glowing, hovering cube. “The next generation of Jedi,” she breathes. For a moment, she is envious. No matter how much she disapproves, Merrin knows that if she was granted the chance to restore her culture, her people, she would not have the strength to resist. But this is not her decision to make.

“The Empire will be after ‘em,” Greez adds. “Just like they’re after us.”

“The lives of every child on that list will be forever changed,” Cere agrees. Only, it doesn’t sound as if she likes what she’s agreeing to.

And with that, Cal’s decision is made. It’s been made, in reality, ever since Trilla absconded with the holocron back on Bogano. This is just the first time he’s realized, and made it a conscious thought.

“But not by us,” says the red-headed Jedi. Cere stares at him, and Cal returns it. Surprisingly, he does not encounter the resistance he thought he would. Perhaps they are all thinking the same thing, on some level. Some things, once done, cannot be undone. And he’s about to do something that cannot be undone.

When Merrin sees that he is about to get up, bracing his right hand on his knee and shifting his weight in preparation for standing. Cal is about to tell her he can handle it, but the words die on his lips when he realizes that she’s not trying to stop him. Instead, the Nightsister ducks under his arm, wraps her own arm around his waist, and carefully helps him gain his feet. The dizziness isn’t as bad this time around, and it only takes Cal a few seconds to center himself. Once he does, and is not in danger of falling back onto the couch, he unwinds himself from Merrin and holds out his hand. There’s a hum, a snick , and then his lightsaber flies into his hand from where it had lain dormant near the couch.

“Their destiny should be trusted to the Force.”

Cal waits one second, then two...and nobody protests. Instead, an air of resignation permeates the room, as if they all know that this is the only acceptable outcome. So, Cal ignites his saber, and with a flick of his wrist, the holocron is no more. It’s so very, very final, and yet...it feels as if this is the final piece of the cleansing they all so desperately needed. The past is the past; trying to resurrect it will only bring more pain and suffering. It’s time to look to the future now.

Cal slowly lays his lightsaber next to the shards of the holocron, trying to hide just how much that small effort cost him. It’s as if the quest for the holocron, and his recent destruction of hit, has cost him every last bit of the energy he managed to gather just a short while ago. 

Still, though, he can’t help but ask, “So...where to next?”

Greez guffaws.

“What, are your ears clogged, kid? Next stop, Dantooine!”