Test of Time Book 1: A Father's Son

Chapter 6: Clarification

Anakin held still for the medics while they cleaned him up. Just like he'd thought, he'd been cut up bad, and since he'd been buried in meters of rubble they had to clean every individual cut thoroughly so the wounds would be clean and wouldn't get infected.

Beside him, Obi-Wan had already received his treatment and was getting his much needed rest. He'd been fortunate that nothing was broken, though from what Anakin had heard his arm had come rather close to being broken. The medical droid was still trying to figure out how Obi-Wan's arm wasn't at least fractured. He had a few bandages on here and there and he still looked a little dirty, but other than that he was perfectly fine.

Luke was a different story. Situated on Anakin's other side, Luke had been on oxygen since they'd put him in the medical capsule, and even now the medical staff kept it on him just to be safe. He had a nasty gash on his head that they'd wrapped up to staunch the bleeding, but it had bled through in the first few minutes and they'd had to change the bandage. His arm had been dislocated, and his wrist was either fractured, broken, or also dislocated, Anakin couldn't quite remember which. Luke's other arm had a cut running down it from being pressed against the jagged edge of the vent, and his back was gashed, skinned, and cut—all the way up from the hip to the shoulder blades—from the other edge of the vent. His legs were bruised—but not broken, thankfully—from the beating they'd taken in the vent on the way down and the rocks that had caved in on the vent or fell inside. He was also still unconscious.

Anakin had to divert his gaze from the man, as he was once again hit with a crippling guilt at the fact that Luke's condition was his fault. The medical droid finished cleaning Anakin up and backed away, taking the samples of all three of the Jedi's blood with them. "We will check these to make sure there are no infections."

Anakin simply nodded in response. He didn't exactly care, except in Luke's case; Luke needed to be checked for infections with how bad his luck seemed to have run so far. Anakin glanced over at the still-asleep Obi-Wan, and then guiltily returned his gaze to Luke. He swung out of his bed, finally unable to lie there any longer, and went over to Luke's side. "I'm sorry Luke...this is all my fault, I shouldn't have snapped. Now everyone's hurt because of me, and we got nothing out of it. Dooku escaped and now those files that might have been there are buried under meters of rubble, and they're all most likely destroyed, whether they were on paper or in a database."

He sighed and sat down in the chair next to Luke's bed, studying the man for the thousandth time. When Luke was resting like this he almost looked like the poster boy for young, undiluted innocence. It was only when he was awake that he had the presence of someone beyond their years who'd seen—or lost—too much. Whatever Luke knew of the future, and whatever he had been through, it had to have been tough, possibly even something that broke people normally. At that thought, Anakin felt a pang of sympathy for him before the guilt came back to the front of his mind for adding to Luke's apparently already heavy burdens.

One of the other medical droids came in and checked up on Luke. When it was finished, Anakin stopped it. "How is he?" he asked seriously, concern hardening his voice.

"He's stabilizing. He'll be fine, he just needs rest and time to heal," the droid informed him.

"Do you have any idea when he'll wake up?"

"Not for some time."

Anakin sighed. "Alright." He watched the droid leave and then turned his attention back to Luke. Through the Force Bond—he was still trying to figure out how it had developed, especially without him noticing—Anakin kept tabs on the young man as Anakin waited patiently for him to finally wake up.

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Sometime later, when Anakin had just been starting to doze off in the chair he'd pulled to Luke's bedside, the droid that had taken their blood samples reappeared.