Raey watched until the door closed, then looked questioningly at Leia. "What's wrong with LN?"

Leia met his gaze with a mild smile he couldn't quite figure out. "She and I need to talk. But I have a few questions for you, first."

Raey bit back a sigh and pushed himself off his pillow, getting annoyed by the metal pieces hidden beneath the cloth digging into his back. "I have a feeling I know where this is going..."

"What happened on that planet, Raey?"

He found a thread sticking up in his sheet and began to tug at it. "I messed up." She didn't say anything, so, barely trying to contain the bitterness in the words, he elaborated, "I got everyone killed."

"How?"

The thread resisted for a moment, then tugged free as something in the weave gave. Raey began wrapping it around his finger, wondering how long it would go before breaking.

"It was... well, it was a trap. The whole planet. I did have time to warn everyone, but I couldn't get past him. If I hadn't told Ar'tak to get Dameron, if we hadn't split up, then he could have stalled Kylo Ren while I ran to the array to warn the fleet. It was my plan that failed, and a lot of people died because of it."

The words were well practiced. The sequence of events had been running through his head ever since the fuzz of whatever they had used to keep him from screaming in surgery had started wearing off.

The thread caught again. He increased the tension until the tip of his finger went white from the tightening thread, then –

Snap.

He stared at the dangling end of white string.

"Why did the plan fail?"

"Because I couldn't defeat Kylo-stinking-Ren in a lightsaber fight."

"Is that all?"

There were enough numbing agents in the hole in his head to keep him from feeling anything, but that didn't stop him from wincing at the memory. Burning, burning, burning behind his eyes...

"I rushed into things?"

He didn't look up at her. He didn't want to see her looking disappointed in him.

"And?"

"I don't know," he muttered, tossing the wad of thread to one side. He smoothed out the wrinkled and uneven area of sheet as best he could. "Why did I fail?"

Don't snap at Princess Leia, don't snap at-- too late.

But Leia didn't tell him why. She just leaned over, rested her hand on top of his where it lay on the sheets. It occurred to him that he was trembling, and now she knew, too.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"A lot of us failed to stop that disaster, so don't take all the blame onto yourself. And this isn't the end. You have a lot to learn, but you will learn. Trust me."

Raey took a heavy breath, lifting his hand to rub under the bandages still covering the left side of his face. The edges weren't completely numbed anymore, and there it itched.

Leia seemed to be satisfied with his lack of response and changed subjects, following the direction of his hand for the new one.

"Your doctor told me you are healing well, and there is little danger of infection or complications. Lightsaber injuries are actually quite straight-forward to treat, if they don't kill you first."

"That's what they told me," Raey admitted, though he didn't quite buy it. "One of them said he knew a surgeon on Coruscant who deals in cybernetics. Unless something goes wrong in the next week, he said he could probably get a..." he shrugged half-heartedly, "... replacement."

"You do not sound completely happy with the idea."

Raey winced, knowing he was risking looking ungrateful in front of the princess. But...

"I just don't quite know what to think yet. They say I lost an eye... but it doesn't seem real. Getting stabbed in the face by a frizzing Knight of Ren on a planet moments from exploding into a sithspittin' supernova..."

Conversation slipped into verbal thought, and Raey only realized he had spoken aloud for all to hear when Leia cleared her throat pointedly at him. Blood rushed to his face and he ducked his head.

"Sorry, your highness."

"Oh, I've said worse. Just not in the hospital, if you don't mind. The director here likes to keep a sterile environment."

It took Raey a moment, then he cracked a weary smile. Leia's widened in response, but then vanished as her tone, and eyes, became serious once more.

"Don't accept the offer, Raey. Not yet."

He looked back up at her, surprised. "The cybernetics?" She nodded.

"If you immediately cover up what you've lost, replace it with a mechanical part, you will find yourself unsatisfied. You will always know it wasn't what you lost - only an imperfect attempt to replicate it - and that discontentment will be with you forever. Growing, perhaps, into something worse.

"Wait. Be patient. When, or if, you decide to accept that offer, you will accept it from the right perspective. Looking up at it, not down."

Raey felt his skin itching under the bandages again, carefully rubbed the edge of his jaw against his shoulder. He didn't want to look fidgety... no, she'd understand. Right?

"So... I just have to learn to live with it?" he asked quietly, then gave in. Leia shook her head as he fiddled with the bandage again.

"Far from it. Raey, you have the makings of a true Jedi. Stay, allow me to train you, and I can teach you to see more clearly with only one, closed eye then you ever could have with two eyes wide open."

Jedi.

He felt, keenly, the metal pieces pressing against his spine through the pillow.

"I got Ar'tak killed, though. I lost one of your last apprentices."

"I haven't given him, or Thren, up for lost. And even if they are gone, that changes nothing between you and I. You need to be trained. I can train you."

Raey didn't know what to do with his hands. No uneven threads, no scrap to fiddle with, no way to escape the princess's confident gaze.

"O-okay."

Leia rose, forcing Raey to turn further to keep her in sight. "Do not rush, Raey. Think, consider, and rest. We have time."

"And the Knights' threat?"

She didn't look back, but she did pause on her way to the door and her impending conversation with LN. "Don't worry about the Knights. Their attention is focused elsewhere for now."

How do you- Raey answered his own question before it finished forming.

"You can feel it?"

She did look back over her shoulder then, and she wasn't smiling.

"I can feel it."