Living Force Epilogue
Mar. 27th, 2006 09:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walbournReunited
The doors of the turbolift were scarcely open when Sara moved hurriedly into the corridors of Chacca's Hope. She was resisting the urge to fly down the halls with Force-assisted haste, figuring that not only would such displays attract the ire of both the medical staff and the CAF MPs, but she was also damned tired.
After a late night of intense work decrypting a critically important datachip - which she could not trust to anyone else, even if they had more suitable equipment for the work -, she had managed only a few hours of sleep before being forced out of bed in the early hours, retching the remains of a mil-ration meal from the previous night. The 24 hours since then had seen nearly unimaginable peril for her beloved system of Cularin and the entire Tarasin species, intense combat, the death of a close friend, the witness of history-making and life-changing events, impromptu celebration, tearful goodbyes to dozens of life-long friends, and barely a moment's rest to take it all in.
Meanwhile, the fate of her husband had been unknown. Several days ago, she had left the rescue mission - for the only man she ever loved and the father of her unborn child - to a trusted friend instead of following the desire of her heart to go after him, damn the consequences. The near constant pressure of the whispering voices of the darkside foretelling her of impending devastation had ground at her nerves for days, before and after the mission launched. Now, simply walking down the corridor of the medical frigate without bursting into tears seemed to take every remaining ounce of will.
Thank the Force that the Stendans had been willing to fly her out almost immediately upon getting word of Denny's rescue, rather than having to wait agonizing hours or even days for a shuttle. Given recent events, many of the regular routes were off-limits to non-military traffic due to battle debris, and it took Ril calling in a favor to get them clearance in a timely fashion.
Arriving at the local nurse's station, Sara reaches for her Cularin-system ident to flash it for the on-duty attendant and is trying to find her voice to ask for Denny's room number when a man walking by on his own way out recognizes her.
"Sara?!" the young man half-asks and half-exclaims, smoothly striding over to her side.
Turning to see the source of the familiar voice, Sara finds a member of Denny's CAF squad standing there. Clearing her throat, she weakly responds, "Um, hi... it's Gavyn right?"
As the designer of the survival course for the Cularin Militia, Sara was well known to most of the recruits as a patient if tough instructor. At this moment, however, the fact that she was nearly at the end of her rope emotionally would be obvious to even a Force-blind person. Turning to the waiting and slightly confused Rodian charge nurse, the young CAF man gently takes Sara's hand as he barks, "This is the Chief's wife, Corporal. Let's not keep her waiting."
"Um, of course not, Sergeant! Go right back, room 23. I'll take care of the paperwork."
Tugging encouragingly on Sara's arm, Gavyn leads her off down the hall. Managing only a weary but grateful smile for a friendly face, Sara follows obediently, focusing her energies on putting one foot in front of the other rather than trying to summon the power of speech. A few turns and short hallways later, they both stop in front of a door stenciled with the number "23". Giving Sara an encouraging nod into the room, he lets go of her hand. "I've got to debrief, tell the Chief I'll see him dirtside." Pausing an awkward moment, he adds, "It'll be fine. You'll see," before turning to leave her standing alone in the hallway.
Taking in a deep few breaths, Sara steps into the room. A neat row of beds lined both walls, each holding various beings recovering from surgery, some cordoned off by privacy screens. The soft sounds of monitors, mechanical breathing apparatus, whirring medical droids, and soft speaking voices drift about as doctors, nurses, and a few visitors tend to the patients. Slowly moving down the line of maimed soldiers and pilots, Sara hears a familiar deep laugh coming from nearby. Clearing the privacy screen blocking her view, she sees the body of a barrel-chested human lying in the bed, his head propped up by his right arm folded behind. His left arm and leg lie unnaturally still, resting in stirrups as a medical droid works on tuning intricate exposed wiring within access panels all long the limbs.
"Please do not move," says the droid in a flatly mechanical voice. For whatever reason the lack of vocabulator quality is considered a reasonable cost trade-off for such droids.
Denny tries to stifle himself in mid-laugh, having just heard something amusing from the uniformed nurse working on equipment stationed next to his bed - she herself laughing good-naturedly at the droids attempt to suppress the frivolities of organics.
Taking the opportunity he quips, "Sorry, doc, but that tickles," which results in more laughing.
At that moment, Denny catches sight of Sara standing there and he flashes her a huge grin, "Hi there, pretty lady!"
The nurse looks back along Denny's line-of-sight, sees a distraught looking human woman in a plain utility jumpsuit bearing the "Stendan Starworks" logo, pats Denny on the shoulder as she picks up her clipboard, and makes herself scarce.
Sara just stands there, long-fought tears welling up into her eyes. The big man reaches out with his right arm to Sara, and waves her over to the bed side. After standing stupidly for a few moments, she shuffles the mud-stained kilassin boots along the floor and plops herself on the right side of the bed, burying her face in his shoulder as tears flow freely down her face. Denny wraps his functioning arm around her, stroking her hair gently. The droid, programmed with some modicum of bedside manner protocols, does not protest and instead continues its work.
Feeling his own eyes get misty at the sound of his wife crying in joy, sadness, or perhaps both, Denny jokes, "The bad news is - I lost my watch. The good news is that I kept the wedding ring on my dogtag chain like you suggested."
The soft quiet sobbing against his chest pauses, followed by a snort of laughter. A muffled voice responds, "Good. Your mom would have killed us if we lost one of the rings." Looking up at Dennis' face, Sara bites her lower lip as if trying to figure out how to express the feelings of the moment. She simply says, "I love you, Denny."
Returning his lover's gaze, he says, "I love you too Sara," and for a long moment they simply embrace.
Turning her head to look at the cybernetic limbs being fitted by the droid, Sara tries for a matter-of-fact tone despite the rawness of emotion still coloring her voice, "You realize that you've just managed to make it really hard for me to patch you back together the next time you decide to do something colossally stupid."
"Yeah, well, next time..." he says as she curls up next to him, laying her head down on his chest.
"Just saying ... " her voice trailing off as she finally gives in and falls soundly asleep, clutching herself tightly to him. Her last conscious thought as she feels Denny settle in around her is to feel sorry for the poor fool who tries to get her to leave when visiting hours are over.
[Sara Story Archive]
The doors of the turbolift were scarcely open when Sara moved hurriedly into the corridors of Chacca's Hope. She was resisting the urge to fly down the halls with Force-assisted haste, figuring that not only would such displays attract the ire of both the medical staff and the CAF MPs, but she was also damned tired.
After a late night of intense work decrypting a critically important datachip - which she could not trust to anyone else, even if they had more suitable equipment for the work -, she had managed only a few hours of sleep before being forced out of bed in the early hours, retching the remains of a mil-ration meal from the previous night. The 24 hours since then had seen nearly unimaginable peril for her beloved system of Cularin and the entire Tarasin species, intense combat, the death of a close friend, the witness of history-making and life-changing events, impromptu celebration, tearful goodbyes to dozens of life-long friends, and barely a moment's rest to take it all in.
Meanwhile, the fate of her husband had been unknown. Several days ago, she had left the rescue mission - for the only man she ever loved and the father of her unborn child - to a trusted friend instead of following the desire of her heart to go after him, damn the consequences. The near constant pressure of the whispering voices of the darkside foretelling her of impending devastation had ground at her nerves for days, before and after the mission launched. Now, simply walking down the corridor of the medical frigate without bursting into tears seemed to take every remaining ounce of will.
Thank the Force that the Stendans had been willing to fly her out almost immediately upon getting word of Denny's rescue, rather than having to wait agonizing hours or even days for a shuttle. Given recent events, many of the regular routes were off-limits to non-military traffic due to battle debris, and it took Ril calling in a favor to get them clearance in a timely fashion.
Arriving at the local nurse's station, Sara reaches for her Cularin-system ident to flash it for the on-duty attendant and is trying to find her voice to ask for Denny's room number when a man walking by on his own way out recognizes her.
"Sara?!" the young man half-asks and half-exclaims, smoothly striding over to her side.
Turning to see the source of the familiar voice, Sara finds a member of Denny's CAF squad standing there. Clearing her throat, she weakly responds, "Um, hi... it's Gavyn right?"
As the designer of the survival course for the Cularin Militia, Sara was well known to most of the recruits as a patient if tough instructor. At this moment, however, the fact that she was nearly at the end of her rope emotionally would be obvious to even a Force-blind person. Turning to the waiting and slightly confused Rodian charge nurse, the young CAF man gently takes Sara's hand as he barks, "This is the Chief's wife, Corporal. Let's not keep her waiting."
"Um, of course not, Sergeant! Go right back, room 23. I'll take care of the paperwork."
Tugging encouragingly on Sara's arm, Gavyn leads her off down the hall. Managing only a weary but grateful smile for a friendly face, Sara follows obediently, focusing her energies on putting one foot in front of the other rather than trying to summon the power of speech. A few turns and short hallways later, they both stop in front of a door stenciled with the number "23". Giving Sara an encouraging nod into the room, he lets go of her hand. "I've got to debrief, tell the Chief I'll see him dirtside." Pausing an awkward moment, he adds, "It'll be fine. You'll see," before turning to leave her standing alone in the hallway.
Taking in a deep few breaths, Sara steps into the room. A neat row of beds lined both walls, each holding various beings recovering from surgery, some cordoned off by privacy screens. The soft sounds of monitors, mechanical breathing apparatus, whirring medical droids, and soft speaking voices drift about as doctors, nurses, and a few visitors tend to the patients. Slowly moving down the line of maimed soldiers and pilots, Sara hears a familiar deep laugh coming from nearby. Clearing the privacy screen blocking her view, she sees the body of a barrel-chested human lying in the bed, his head propped up by his right arm folded behind. His left arm and leg lie unnaturally still, resting in stirrups as a medical droid works on tuning intricate exposed wiring within access panels all long the limbs.
"Please do not move," says the droid in a flatly mechanical voice. For whatever reason the lack of vocabulator quality is considered a reasonable cost trade-off for such droids.
Denny tries to stifle himself in mid-laugh, having just heard something amusing from the uniformed nurse working on equipment stationed next to his bed - she herself laughing good-naturedly at the droids attempt to suppress the frivolities of organics.
Taking the opportunity he quips, "Sorry, doc, but that tickles," which results in more laughing.
At that moment, Denny catches sight of Sara standing there and he flashes her a huge grin, "Hi there, pretty lady!"
The nurse looks back along Denny's line-of-sight, sees a distraught looking human woman in a plain utility jumpsuit bearing the "Stendan Starworks" logo, pats Denny on the shoulder as she picks up her clipboard, and makes herself scarce.
Sara just stands there, long-fought tears welling up into her eyes. The big man reaches out with his right arm to Sara, and waves her over to the bed side. After standing stupidly for a few moments, she shuffles the mud-stained kilassin boots along the floor and plops herself on the right side of the bed, burying her face in his shoulder as tears flow freely down her face. Denny wraps his functioning arm around her, stroking her hair gently. The droid, programmed with some modicum of bedside manner protocols, does not protest and instead continues its work.
Feeling his own eyes get misty at the sound of his wife crying in joy, sadness, or perhaps both, Denny jokes, "The bad news is - I lost my watch. The good news is that I kept the wedding ring on my dogtag chain like you suggested."
The soft quiet sobbing against his chest pauses, followed by a snort of laughter. A muffled voice responds, "Good. Your mom would have killed us if we lost one of the rings." Looking up at Dennis' face, Sara bites her lower lip as if trying to figure out how to express the feelings of the moment. She simply says, "I love you, Denny."
Returning his lover's gaze, he says, "I love you too Sara," and for a long moment they simply embrace.
Turning her head to look at the cybernetic limbs being fitted by the droid, Sara tries for a matter-of-fact tone despite the rawness of emotion still coloring her voice, "You realize that you've just managed to make it really hard for me to patch you back together the next time you decide to do something colossally stupid."
"Yeah, well, next time..." he says as she curls up next to him, laying her head down on his chest.
"Just saying ... " her voice trailing off as she finally gives in and falls soundly asleep, clutching herself tightly to him. Her last conscious thought as she feels Denny settle in around her is to feel sorry for the poor fool who tries to get her to leave when visiting hours are over.
[Sara Story Archive]
