Part Two

     Lire’s jaw dropped in shock at Carth’s sudden statement, and she gave his hand as reassuring a squeeze as she could manage at the time.  Her heart was pounding so hard that it echoed in her ears, and fear gripped her even though she struggled desperately not to let it show.  She stroked the back of his hand, her Force energy rejuvenated enough to cool the burns and heal the flesh.

     “Shh, you’re okay,” she soothed. “You’re going to be fine.”

     Carth weakly shook his head as a tear or two trailed down his scarred cheek.  Lire realized at that moment that never in the few months she had known him had she seen him cry.  It was a bit stunning for her to witness those tears roll down the pilot’s face; this sudden loss had obviously crushed him far worse than Lire could’ve possibly imagined.  With a gentle hand and a compassionate heart, she brushed that tear away, focusing her power as she did and watching as the charred skin healed beneath her fingers.  Yet she was getting tired again; at this rate, she’d have to keep this up for days before there would be enough improvement in him to make a difference.  And Carth was still making those worrying raspy sounds; Lire laid a hand over his throat, trying to heal the burns there.  Once again, her Force energy was drained, but the burns had faded somewhat.  Carth was trembling in her arms; she sighed and pressed her cheek to his forehead, gently rocking him back and forth again.  She knew she could never envision what it was like to see nothing but thick blackness, but she could feel his pain rolling off of him in waves.  She just held him tightly, murmuring words of encouragement that she feared went ignored.  

     Far off in the distance, there was again that ominous sound of stone scraping against stone.  Lire turned as hurried footsteps drew nearer, and a moment later, Mission emerged from the corridor, breathless and with her lekku slapping against her back.  Jolee Bindo was right behind her, holding a small crate—his makeshift doctor bag since he served as the Ebon Hawk’s medic—filled with necessary medical equipment.  Mission fell to her knees beside Carth, wrapping both of her tiny hands around his much larger one and squeezing.

     “I’m so, so sorry, Carth,” she babbled. “I really didn’t mean to bump into you, honest!  I felt like I was gonna fall off the edge and I didn’t have anywhere else to go . . .  But I bet if I hadn’t been lookin’ down, I wouldn’t’ve felt like that, and I wouldn’t’ve bumped into you, and you wouldn’t be hurt right now . . .”

     She trailed off, biting her lip and sniffling.  Carth returned the squeeze but didn’t say anything.  Jolee knelt next to Lire, fishing some kolto from the little crate.

     “Well, lemme see here . . .  Yep, bad enough that you had to come and interrupt my nap.  Lessee, sonny . . .”

     He took one of Carth’s hands and bandaged it with kolto-soaked strips of gauze, and Lire still kept a firm hold on the pilot.  Mission looked up at her, big eyes worried.

     “Why ain’t he lookin’ at any of us?” she asked in a fearful, hushed tone.

     Lire sighed and smoothed Carth’s hair before looking mournfully up at Mission.

     “He’s blind, Mish.”

     Mission’s reaction was one of horror.  Her jaw dropped as the tears welling in her eyes spilled out, running down her face.  She buried her face in the front of Carth’s jacket, miserably weeping her heart out.  Lire reached over and rubbed her back.

     “Now I know it’s all m—my fault,” Mission sputtered. “M—my fault he’s . . . he’s b—blind!”

     “Don’t say that, Mish,” Lire replied. “It was an accident.  Don’t put all the blame on yourself.”  She looked to Jolee, who was dousing Carth’s face with kolto.  “Is he gonna be okay?”

     “Don’t talk about me like I ain’t here,” Carth muttered, voice low and words faintly slurred. “Jus’ ‘cause I’m a deep-fried blind pilot doesn’t mean I don’t exist.”

     “Oh, hush,” Lire chided, neatening the slightly burned ends of his hair. “This is just temporary, most like.  Now be still and let Jolee look at you.”

     Because he really had no other option, Carth complied and remained lying in Lire’s protective embrace as Jolee examined him, quite often murmuring “Hmm” under his breath.  Mission still looked as if she were on the verge of tears, and when Lire opened her other arm to her, the girl crawled over and hid her face in her friend’s shoulder.  Lire just kissed the top of her head, patting Mission’s lekku with a sisterly affection.  After a minute, Jolee sighed heavily and sat back on his heels, surveying his work.  Carth’s face looked relatively healed, but it seemed as if it might need a little more time and kolto to be restored to its normal state.

     “Let’s get ‘im back to the ship,” he said. “I need more light.  These Sith never did know how to install good light fixtures, dammit.”

     “Should we move him?” Lire asked, brows furrowed. “What if he’s in shock?”

     “Don’t you young’uns trust your elders anymore?” the old man sighed. “He’s got enough kolto floatin’ in his system to make him downright giddy.  I just wanna get a better look at those eyes o’ his, see if it’s permanent or not.”

     “It’d better not be,” Mission bemoaned, climbing to her feet. “I feel bad enough as it is!”

     “He’ll be fine, Mish,” Lire assured her once again as Jolee helped her heft Carth to his feet. “I promise, he’s gonna be fine.”

     By the time Lire was completely on her feet, her shoulder was nestled up under Carth’s arm, and she had one hand on his waist while the other clutched the hand hanging tight to her opposite shoulder.  It was slightly curious to see how a woman as relatively small as she could support a man a good seventy pounds heavier than she.  Mission scurried around to Carth’s other side, offering her own support.

     “I ain’t paralyzed . . .” Carth mumbled, unseeing eyes staring straight ahead.

     “I know,” Lire replied as they started making their way toward the tomb exit, Jolee behind them. “It’s just that . . . well . . .”

     “You can’t see where you’re going,” Mission blurted out, “and we don’t want you to get hurt!”

Lire noticed a pained expression cross Carth’s face, and she glanced momentarily at Mission, shaking her head as if to remind the girl not to make any more mention of that than she had to.  Mission nodded rapidly before she wrapped her arms around Carth’s waist and squeezed him in an enormous hug.  He went stiff for a second or two before gingerly patting her back.  Lire just sighed to herself as she wondered if this blindness would be permanent.  That would be such a crushing blow if it were.  She decided instead to hope for the best as the foursome made their way back through the Valley of the Dark Lords and toward the Ebon Hawk, ignoring the strange glances they got from the Sith.

     When they returned to the Hawk, Lire was bombarded from all angles by questions.  Jolee restricted Carth to the medbay while Lire and Mission attempted to answer the prodding curiosities of the other crew members.  When the story was finally told, it was greeted by a mixture of shock and horror, and Lire knew why.  What good was a blind pilot?  T3-M4 could certainly fly the ship, yes, but he was relatively limited to his programming.  Carth could be more creative in tough situations.  Yet Lire warned the others not to make a big fuss over this situation; she somehow knew that Carth was at a fragile point in his already broken history, and any thoughtless mention of blindness was likely to send him over the edge.  This was the reason Lire sat nearby as Jolee examined Carth’s eyes, both with the Force and with the medbay’s equipment, to try to get a sense of the damage’s severity.  After a minute or two of close observation, Jolee patted Carth’s shoulder.

     “Well, sonny, looks t’ me like you got all worked up over nothin’.  Just spooked your eyes a bit is all.  They’ll get better, but you oughtta get used to seein’ black for a week or so.  You can go.”

     Carth looked a sight, to tell the truth.  His eyes had kolto-soaked patches over them, held in place by some bandages wrapped around his head.  Lire felt so sorry for him that she reached over and took him by the hand.

     “C’mon, Flyboy,” she said. “I’ll help you get up to the cockpit.”

     Yet Carth snatched his hand from her grip and shook his head, pressing his palms to the medbay’s bunk before easing up.  He wobbled a bit but didn’t fall, and his jaw was set determinedly.

     “I’ll find it,” he said before trying to find the doorway.

     He groped along the wall for a minute before he found the medbay’s entrance, at which point he nodded before rounding the corner, headed right.  Lire darted out and got him turned the other way, and he grumbled under his breath, evidently displeased with himself.  But before long he was off toward the cockpit, slowly and almost hesitantly as he ran his hands over the walls to try to get his bearings.  Lire sighed and looked at Jolee with mournful eyes.

     “He’s so . . . so proud,” she murmured, folding her arms and watching as Carth nearly bumped into a corner. “Tell me, Jolee: is he going to be all right in a couple weeks?”

     The old man sighed as his shoulders drooped a bit.

     “Hard to tell, lass,” he replied softly. “Those eyes o’ his look pretty damaged.  Could be they just need rest.  Or maybe he’s never gonna see again.  I had to tell him there was hope so he wouldn’t go gettin’ depressed on us, y’see.”

     Lire sighed again and nodded.  From where she stood, she could see that Mission had almost appeared out of nowhere and was giving Carth vocal directions, and the girl praised him when he sank into his usual seat in the cockpit.

     “I know,” Lire answered. “I just . . .  What if he doesn’t see again, Jolee?”

     “Then we’re just gonna have to get used to it.  But blind folks aren’t worthless, y’know.  There’re things they can do better than we can.  I bet after a while his hearing’s gonna be sharper than a Sullustan’s.  He might end up having a really good sense of touch, too, for all I know.  Could be he’ll end up recognizing this ship just by the feel of its rivets.”

     “Is that even possible?” Lire asked, eyes still fixated on the corridor to the cockpit.  Jolee looked mildly incredulous.

     “Of course it is, lass.  You just wait and see.  I bet he’s gonna come through this with flyin’ colors.  If he’s survived the rest of the garbage in his life you were tellin’ me about, he should have no problems here.”

     “But he can’t see, Jolee,” Lire replied, voice low. “That’s different from watching your homeworld die.  It’s like . . . like ripping the Force from a Jedi, almost.  It’s taking away something they depended so fully on but didn’t really realize it.  Like taking it away from them just because they took it for granted as if that would make a point.”  She paused and sighed, shaking her head slightly.  “He might not take this very well at all.”

     Jolee was about to answer when Lire suddenly darted off at the sound of faint shuffling in the cockpit corridor.  The next moment, Lire was at Carth’s side, hand on his elbow.  An unhappy scowl was on his face; it was evident he did not like being led around like someone completely powerless and unable to fend for himself.  He tugged his arm out of Lire’s grasp again.

     “I can find my own way,” he muttered, and Lire sighed.

     “I know, but—”

     “But?  Just because I’m blind doesn’t mean I’m helpless.”

     His voice was pained, full of anger, regret, sorrow . . .  Lire bit her lip as she tried to think of something to say, but she couldn’t.  She had a horrible feeling that he might pull away from them all, that he might retreat into a deep, dark corner of solitary misery.  She reached over and squeezed his hand, but he pulled it away and instead ran it along the wall, trying to find his way to the men’s dorm.

     “Don’t do this,” Lire said. “Let me help!”

     “Thanks but no thanks,” came the almost bitter reply. “I’m not helpless, and I’m not useless, so I can do this myself.”

     Hand still running flat against the wall, Carth started off in the direction of the men’s dorm, muttering directions under his breath.  He was obviously trying so hard to remember the ship’s layout, and it seemed that he was doing a fairly good job of it because he nearly made a wrong turn but rectified it.  Lire’s eyebrows furrowed worriedly as she watched him walk slowly, almost hesitantly, down the hall.  Part of her wanted to be able to know what he felt so she could understand better.  The other part just wanted to be his eyes while he had none.  Mission came up sadly behind her just as the door to the men’s dorm hissed shut.

     “He’s not doin’ so good, is he?” the girl asked softly.  Lire shook her head slowly.

     “I don’t think so, sweetie,” she answered with a sigh.  Mission’s shoulders slumped.

     “And it’s all my fault,” she murmured. “If I’d been more careful, he wouldn’t be miserable right now.  I just wish I could make it better for him . . .”

     She looked on the verge of tears, so Lire held out her arms and embraced the young Twi’lek.  Mission cried into Lire’s shoulder, causing Lire to realize that Mission hadn’t cried so hard since Taris was turned to little but ash.  She rubbed the girl’s back, sighing.

     “He’ll be okay, Mish.”  To herself she added, I hope.