Bounty hunting is a complicated profession

Cyar'ika

Time slowed down.

Each second seemed to stretch and last an eternity.

You looked up, from Din's blood-splattered chestplate to his helmet, confused and unable to understand how could have he been wounded and why was there blood on the outside of his armour.

He couldn't be hurt, right? He couldn't. You took a deep breath in a futile attempt to try and steady yourself. To try and not panic at the idea of Din being injured again. To try and stop the flood of images in your head from the last time he had been wounded, from when you almost lost him.

Searing pain spread from your chest throughout your body.

"Oh…" You muttered in understanding just before your body gave way and you began to fall backwards.

'Dank farrik!' You thought angrily as you fell. You couldn't die now, not when things seemed  to be back onto the right track. Not now when you had Din, when you were finally happy.

It wasn't fair.

The Darksaber's hilt hit the floor with a loud clang that broke the silence, and time resumed its natural pace. Din's arms caught you just before you hit the floor and suddenly chaos reigned in the room. There was shouting and banging and a lot of noise, but you weren't able to process it all because you were drowning.

You tried to breath, feeling a sharp, stabbing pain in the chest as you did so. Tears started to stream down the sides of your face uncontrollably and there was nothing you could do to stop them. No air seemed to be reaching your lungs and the more you tried the worse, until you started coughing spasmodically and blood splashed everywhere. You were gasping for air, feeling the blood dripping from your mouth and splattering all around, but no oxygen seemed to be getting inside your lungs. It was just like when you had almost drowned but worse. A million times worse.

Din was holding you in his arms, bending over you and you clung to him, grabbing to whatever cloth you could find, as if your life depended on it, as if by grabbing him strongly enough you could somehow stop yourself from dying, stop yourself from parting from him.

His outline was blurred by the tears in your eyes, and his armour and helmet were tinged red by your blood. He was caressing your face while saying something, either to you or to Cara who was working on your wound, but you couldn't hear him. All you could hear was a gurgling noise in the back of your throat, the rapid beating of your heart pounding in your ears, and the wheezing and gasping sounds that your efforts to get some air into your lungs caused.

After some minutes that felt like a lifetime, the burning, piercing pain in your chest started to slowly fade to a dull, throbbing ache. Yet, breathing was still excruciatingly agonising and, although you noticed that it was steadily getting better and that you were somehow managing to get some air in, it still felt as if you were drowning. As if your head was under water, only if water was very thick and tasted like iron.

Luckily, whatever Cara had done was clearly working and it was doing so fast – although to you it felt like the improvement was extremely slow. The pain was there but had become just bearable and, little by little, you were managing to breathe in. You kept coughing blood, albeit not as much, and could still hear the gurgling sound at the back of your throat, although it had grown softer. Most importantly, you were breathing, even if you had to purposely take in fast and shallow breaths in order to avoid stirring up the pain in your chest.

"...managed to stop the bleeding but she needs the bacta." Cara was saying.

Bo-Katan, who was right behind her, said something to Cara that you didn't catch and the two women started talking in hurried whispers moving away from your range of vision. Where the other Mandalorian or the braided woman were, you had no idea.