"Only if you let him." Hallin said, eliciting an unexpected dry, rasping laugh from his patient.
"Why is everybody saying that to me today?" Luke mused, then added quickly, to forestall Hallin's question. "I think I have to concede this particular game."
"What will you do?" Hallin asked, knowing he'd get no specific answer; that Luke wasn't in the habit of handing information out unless he thought it was necessary. In this, he was very much like the Emperor.
"Palpatine's looking for a response- expecting one." Luke said thoughtfully, "I'd hate to disappoint."
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CHAPTER EIGHT
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Mara stopped at the door to Skywalker's room in the medi-center, almost bumping into Hallin as he left. "How's he doing today?"
"Well, he must be getting better because he's driving me insane." The slight medic said, smiling tightly.
"What's he doing now?"
She knew Skywalker had basically nagged Hallin into fitting his new right hand before the medic wanted to, but she could understand that even if Hallin couldn't; she too had found the sight of the chrome locking bar extending from the bone of the disfigured stump deeply unsettling - and it wasn't even her bone it was set into. And anyway, he'd developed the disquieting habit of using the blunt tip to scratch at the healing scabs on his face. Plus, with Skywalker's left arm still immobile, without his right hand he could do nothing, which Mara had to admit would have left her feeling pretty vulnerable in a place where vulnerability was a dangerous thing. Admittedly, he still had little control of the new hand, but that would come, and that much sooner for having been fitted already.
"Well now he's got it into his head that he wants to leave the medi-center." Hallin said, as if Luke were asking the outrageous.
"To go where?"
"Back to his own apartments. Which is out of the question and he knows it."
Skywalker's hoarse voice grated weakly from the doorway in reply, "He is still awake and can hear everything you're saying."
There was indulgent humour in his voice, but that unmovable, authoritative tone was beginning to creep back in, his stubborn streak returning with his gradual recovery. Hallin remained unimpressed- the advantage of long familiarity. "Well then The Heir knows that there is no absolutely no way that he can return to his apartments yet."
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Mara catwalked into the Master Bedroom of Skywalker's apartments, trying not to wake him.
It was the third day he had been back, Hallin having caved completely, though he'd complained bitterly about the necessity of bringing all his medical equipment from the North Tower to the West Tower where the massive Perlemian Apartments sprawled over one complete level of the Tower, taking every opportunity on the rare moments that Skywalker was actually awake in the last two days to state that the reason for his exhaustion was that he wasn't ready for this kind of stress yet.
So much so that Skywalker had finally asserted that the reason he'd wanted to return was that he could now legitimately throw Hallin out of his room if the medic nagged too much, which he was on the verge of doing right now.
But Skywalker was recovering, more alert when he was awake, his memory repairing, his blurred vision returning, the white of his injured eye clearing though the iris had sustained scarring, which had resulted in the disconcerting effect of discoloring a large area of the pale, sky blue iris, rendering it almost black. Even knowing this, Mara often found she would need several seconds when looking at him to lock down that uneasy feeling that something had changed - not the obvious scar which sliced a long, twisted path down the right side of his face and through his lips, but something more subtle, more fundamental.
Still, a return to his own quarters had seen a marked improvement, even to Mara's eyes; he'd slept through the night again and well into the next morning, Mara keeping the photosensitive transparisteel of the tall bank of windows dialled down to halfway.
Now the balcony doors were pushed open, the warm summer breeze filtering in to tug at Mara's hair as she sat, her back to the room, finally getting a chance to settle and catch up on some Intel reports. Engrossed in her reading, she almost jumped from her chair when there was a loud thud behind her and a flash of surprise which blasted out so strongly through the Force that even she felt it. She twisted round to see Skywalker huddled awkwardly on the floor by the bed, more or less upright. Panicking, she swung up, keying the medial emergency comm on the table then dashing forward to him.
"I'm fine, I'm fine." he reassured, though he didn't get up, his pinned arm held close, cradled by the other.
"What the hell are you doing?!"
"Sitting on the floor apparently." he deadpanned, voice still low and hoarse.
Mara reached him and suddenly stopped dead, arms outstretched, having no idea how to help him up. He was wearing what he had always worn to sleep in; a pair of tie-waisted sleeping trousers, his torso bare, and now suddenly, when she had to touch him, it seemed way too little.
Which was stupid because she'd seen him dressed like this hundreds of times when she'd come into his apartments first thing in the morning, or when he'd wandered around in this and a loose, open dressing gown before breakfast, now completely comfortable with the amount of people who seemed to find it necessary to wander his apartments at any hour of the day.
And when he trained in the Practice Halls six floors down, the huge ebony-floored room boasting a long, floor-to-ceiling glass wall which made it incredibly hot in summer despite the climate controls, he would generally strip off the tank vest he wore in an effort to cool down. She'd never looked twice...well, that wasn't actually true, but she'd never felt this awkward or embarrassed before.
"Are you gonna help me up, or are you just here to watch?" he prompted.
"What happened?" Mara finally managed, reaching out, uncertain.
"My leg went from under me when I put my weight on it, that's all."
"You dislocated your hip and your ankle." Mara reminded, bringing his eyes sharply up, though his head didn't move, neck still stiff and painful.
"Somebody could have told me that."
"We did- repeatedly." Mara said dryly, taking Skywalker's right arm well above the surgery line and trying to lift.
He yelped as his broken collarbone took the strain. Mara let go instantly, crouching down. It occurred to her only now that, among greater pains and injuries, the dislocations may well have been ignored by Skywalker, and his memory from the first few weeks was still patchy. "I'm sure Hallin must have told you recently."
"I listen to about a third of what Hallin says." Luke said, leaning away when Mara tried to reach out to his pinned arm, "Not a chance." he uttered dryly.
"A third?" Mara grinned, "That's way more than me."
She moved round his back and, after a moment's hesitation, slipped her arms under his, hands about his chest, deeply aware of the warmth of his skin.
"Wait! Surgery scar." he reminded as she closed her hands about the long, still-angry scar which ran down his chest from his broken collarbones to below his ribs.
Mara pulled her hands back to rest against his sides, trying not to press in, knowing how long broken ribs took to heal. Still, when she tightened her grip, he pulled in another sharp intake of breath. She paused, "What?"
"Those are broken."
She slid her hands down over smooth skin, "How about here?"
"Ow."
"Well..."
"I think we can just safely assume that everything hurts." he croaked.
"Well then maybe you shouldn't have tried to get up." Mara said, still crouched behind him.