#sky jade

 For the briefest moment, he looked like he might not let it go, but then nodded towards the back of the hanger where his X-Wing sat out of immediate view. From the looks of it, it had seen some action. “Had a surprise run-in on my way back to Yavin IV and had to stop for some repairs.”

 A shrill sound caught her attention and she saw his R2 unit following after one of the mechanics back into the offices, fussing the whole way and refusing to be waived off. She shook her head and let the first real smile since they’d landed touch her lips. “We always seem to run into each other when you run into trouble.”

 He flashed her a grin. “Could say the same for you, but I think it’s a fair bet we find plenty of trouble on our own. Are you staying for a while?”

 “No, I should get going. Things went pretty bad in the deal and eventually they’ll realize I didn’t dock at the main hangar. No reason to tempt fate.”

 For the briefest of moments, she thought she saw disappointment in his eyes - maybe even felt it - but it was gone just as quickly. “Next time we’re on the same planet, we should catch up. It’s been a while.”

 “Miss me, Skywalker?” she teased, but didn’t expect the honest “Yes” in return with that painfully earnest look he got. She rolled her eyes, trying to hold onto the playful mood. “Well, if you can promise neither of us will walk away from it bleeding, I might be persuaded.”

 His lips parted, a response looking ready to roll off his tongue to continue the banter they’d become accustomed to, but he stiffened ever so slightly. Mara felt it a half moment later and shifted so she could see around him even as he turned. 

 Everything happened in what felt like a fraction of a second. Her brain registered  a figure approaching at a quick pace, something clutched in hand. It went up in the air, the lights on it already showing all the signs of detonation, and she heard Skywalker shout something. A bright light ripped at her eyes, the ear piercing sound of an explosion the warning that they wouldn’t have long to care, but the flames from the explosion didn’t touch her. Luke stood in front of her, both hands outstretched and his face strained as he fought to keep the blast from killing them both. 

 But the explosion had to go somewhere, and Mara barely registered where as the steady hangar floor suddenly rippled and broke beneath their feet, sending both her and Skywalker crashing down to the next level. 

 ——-

 She came around slowly, wincing as she pushed her body off the ground and felt bits of debris fall away, struggling to pull the details of what had happened together. Mara blinked hard and dim, flickering lights that hung unsteadily from far above gave a limited view of her surroundings. The next level down? Couldn’t be. A hangar bay had to be big enough to house ships. The fall alone would have killed her…. but they weren’t in the main bay. That was right. She and Gesk had landed on the outskirts to avoid prying eyes. Then the deal has gone bad, she’d come back, and…. Skywalker. 

 Mara’s gaze swept the room she’d landed in and found only pieces of the hangar bay floor that had come crashing down with them, but no sign of the Jedi Master. She pulled in a shaky breath, forcing herself to relax with the exhale and reach out through the Force. She could feel pain, fear, panic…. But they were all distant and they weren’t Luke. She pictured him in her mind, focusing, until there was a flicker that felt like him a handful of meters away. She let her eyes flicker open and found a pile of debris where she could sense him. That couldn’t be good. 

 She picked her way over carefully, trying to strengthen her connection to him. Slowly, deliberately, she studied the pile of rubble to see what would happen if she started pulling it away until she found a place to start that she was relatively certain wouldn’t collapse in on him or outward on her. She couldn’t help him if she was pinned too. 

 It was painstaking work, but as she got closer and closer she could feel that flicker of consciousness start to grow. “I'm coming,” she huffed the promise, feeling sweat trickling down the back of her neck. He just needed to hold on a little longer. 

 Mara sent a chunk of metal tumbling out of her way and cleared an opening. In it she saw a mop of dark blond hair and relief flooded through her. She carefully tugged more and more debris out of the way, showing that he was twisted over, under, and around pieces of the floor and ceiling and whatever had been between, half on his side. As she pulled at a larger slab that was pressing down against his ribs she felt a jolt of pain from him. Blue eyes popped open and Skywalker choked on the sudden inhale that came with his abrupt return to consciousness. Mara froze, fingers latched around the best handholds she could find, unsure if she was somehow hurting him more by removing it. 

 “Hey,” she growled out, voice straining as she felt the tension on her hands and arms from holding the heavy slab just slightly off of him. “Skywalker.”

 His gaze snapped to her and he seemed to piece together what was happening. He gave the barest of nods and, with a breath and a little help from the Force, she finished the task of freeing him. 

 Skywalker shuddered, turning to curl on his side and Mara let her gaze travel down the length of his body until she spotted where his left arm was wrapped around his body, hand clutching at the ripped fabric of his flight suit. Blood leaked through his fingers as he struggled to catch his breath.

  Mara looked up at the severely damaged ceiling above them to verify they weren’t in immediate danger of another collapse before she sank down to a knee next to him, reaching out through the Force and with a hand, both gestures as soothing as she could manage. 

 He flinched under her physical touch, but didn’t pull fully away. His skin was clammy, blood smeared on his face from a cut above his right eye that was already starting to swell. She let her fingers linger at his hairline, the movement careful as she searched for any sign of head trauma. Well, at least there was one positive sign. 

 One more brush of his hair and she let her hand drift down, simultaneously checking for injuries and making sure he knew where she was looking. He must have had enough wherewithal to follow, because his left hand tightened around the fabric of his tattered flight suit as she drew closer to the injury. “I need to look,” she said, her voice rough than she meant for it to be. “Skywalker.” She received no acknowledgement and she loosed a soft sigh. “Luke.”

 He tensed slightly, but one by one his fingers started to loosen so that she could gently move his hand to reveal the jagged, deep gash that stretched along and below his ribs. She frowned at the wound, trying to push back the fact that it had likely been made worse when she’d removed the piece of ceiling from him. 

 “Not your fault,” he managed, his voice barely more than a whisper. “Couldn’t breathe.”

 She blinked, filling in the missing pieces of the explanation. “Bleeding out or crushed to death, how do you want to go?” she snarked softly. 

 Somehow it pulled the barest of laughs from him. “Neither?”

 “That’s got my vote.” 

 “Jade!”

 Mara’s gaze jerked to the massive hole in the ceiling to see Gesk inched carefully to the edge. As far as she could see, he looked to have missed the brunt of the blast. 

 “It pushed the ship back!” he called down. “Not sure if she’ll fly or not but —“

 “I don’t give a kriff about the ship!” she snapped. “We need medical attention down here now .”

 He gave her a startled look and started nodding enthusiastically. “Yep. Yeah, of course. They’re uh… on their way. I’ll go check.”

 And then he was gone, not leaving Mara with a whole lot of faith in him. She sighed, shrugging her jacket off and turning it inside out to find the cleanest stretch of fabric. “This’ll hurt,” she warned, but didn’t give Skywalker a chance to protest as she pressed down. 

 His body went tense under her hands, blue eyes squeezed shut and she felt the fingers on his right hand graze her bent knee before taking hold of a piece of rubble to squeeze against the pain. She saw a flash of metal and, for a moment, she thought some of the ceiling was embedded in his hand before she remembered that it was mechanica under the synth fleshl. It was the metal casing that helped to protect the wiring she was seeing. He really had taken the full force of the attack. One likely meant for her. 

 “Not your fault,” he repeated through clenched teeth. 

 “He was probably after me,” she confessed quietly. “Two people got away in the botched deal.”

 “You recognize him?”

 Mara struggled to recall the approaching figure that had held the detonator, but she couldn’t recall the face. “I don’t know.”

 “Could have just as easily tracked me.” His grip on the rubble loosened just a little. “You okay?”

 “You took the brunt of it.”

 And tightened again, a fresh wave of pain evident. “Not an answer,” he managed. 

 “I’m okay,” she promised. “Hell of a lot better than you.” 

 A rough chuckle left him and she felt his hand on her knee. “Good.”

 He was drifting again. “Luke?”

 “Hmm?”

 “I meant it earlier. No more near-death experiences when we see each other.”

 “Reasonable,” he huffed, amusement flickering through the Force. 

 “Good.” Because, somewhere along the way, she realized that she wasn’t ready to lose him. 

 “You too,” he murmured. 

 She hated when he did that… but for what it was worth, she doubted either of them had their barriers up. Before she could talk herself out of it she leaned down, pressing a quick kiss to his temple. If he knew or not, she couldn’t tell, and she’d just as soon prefer he didn’t. 

 “Jade! I got help!” Gesk called from above and there were several locals with him along with Skywalker’s nervous little R2 unit. 

 “Hear that, Skywalker? Gesk actually did what he was told.”

 Luke’s amusement flickering over was the only sign he’d heard her. She stayed with him, unmoving from where she was knelt with her hands pressed against her jacket that was staunching the flow of blood from the gash along his ribs. The locals descended with a medical droid and only then did she force herself to stand and take a step back, feeling his limp hand slide from her knee as he did.